#this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 8 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 18 minutes ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 18 hours ago * District of Chic Ulyana stalking 23 hours ago * What I Wore Vintage & Modern: Polka Dot Dress 1 day ago * Videogum Monsters’ Ball: The Week’s Best Comments 1 day ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 2 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 6 days ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 8 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. 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Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,562,778,695 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Sunday 05 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. Brand and Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, both resigned. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8557822/BBC-in-decenc y-row-over-obscene-joke-by-Sandi-Toksvig.html Telegraph BBC * News » * UK News » * TV and Radio » * Heidi Blake » In BBC TV Guide TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings New BBC One nature series Earthflight gives us a bird's eye view of the world Earthflight: a bird's eye view of the world Miss Havisham summary image Great Expectations: Miss Havisham on film A visitor stands next to the 3D mural painted by Eduardo Relero called, ìInsesatezî, in Lleida, Spain: Eduardo Relero's Incredible 3D Art Amazing 3D street art A sea lion chases a gentoo penguin onto land - both are like fish out of water and the sea lion struggles to make a kill. 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Anti Joke Anti Joke logo « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 2994 2995 Next » What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +12726 Spinner 191 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-worse-than-finding-a-worm-in-yo ur-apple----the-holocaust--2 &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook An Irishman walks out of a bar. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9408 Spinner 41 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fan-irishman-walks-out-of-a-bar &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why did the boy drop his ice cream? Because he was hit by a bus. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9212 Spinner 43 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-did-the-boy-drop-his-ice-cream--b ecause-he-was-hit-by-a-bus &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock knock. Who's there? To. To who? To whom. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8532 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----to----to -who----to-whom &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Q: What is red and smells like blue paint? A: Red paint. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8454 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fq-what-is-red-and-smells-like-blue-pa int----a-red-paint &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have a gun. Get in the van. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7917 Spinner 77 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Froses-are-red--violets-are-blue--i-ha ve-a-gun--get-in-the-van &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook A dyslexic man walks into a bra. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7628 Spinner 54 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fa-dyslexic-man-walks-into-a-bra &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Whats green and has wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7059 Spinner 26 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-green-and-has-wheels----grass-i -lied-about-the-wheels &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook How do you confuse a blond? Paint yourself green and throw forks at her. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +6205 Spinner 42 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fhow-do-you-confuse-a-blond----paint-y ourself-green-and-throw-forks-at-her &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook What's sad about 4 black people in a Cadillac going over a cliff? They were my friends. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5943 Spinner 30 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-sad-about-4-black-people-in-a-c adillac-going-over-a-cliff----they-were-my-friends &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why was six afraid of seven? It wasn't. Numbers are not sentient and thus incapable of feeling fear. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5424 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-was-six-afraid-of-seven----it-was nt-numbers-are-not-sentient-and-thus-incapable-of-feeling-fear &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock, Knock. Who's there? Dave. Dave who? Dave proceeds to break into tears as his grandmother's Alzheimers has progressed to the point where she can no longer remember him. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +4987 Spinner 15 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----dave---- dave-who----dave-proceeds-to-break-into-tears-as-his-grandmothers-a lzheimers-has-progressed-to-the-point-where-she-can-no-longer-remem ber-him &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 2994 2995 Next » Anti Joke What are Antijokes? Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of comedy in which the uses is set up to expect a typical joke setup however the joke ends with such anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. The lack of punchline is the punchline. MOAR?? Want more? 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 278319 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 278,319Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your city: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 6. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475173128" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 5 February 2012 at 08:07. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO Brock Lesnar retires after losing at UFC 141 Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is the answer to this not a joke but a? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What do jokes do? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do people joke because they are a joke? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the scarborough joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] When were jokes made? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] How do you computer joke? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do you say 'to do a joke' or 'to make a joke'? * What makes a joke a joke? * What IT jokes are there? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is the longest joke? » More Featured guides * Online Teaching Jobs * Low Income Dental Care * 1200 Calorie Diet Plan * How To Choose A Cheap Cell Phone Plan * How To Make Easy Healthy Snacks Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Sunday, 5 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 5 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 5 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - Durand Arnaud * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - j-c Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Super Bowl XLVI SUPER BOWL: all you need to know about XLVI * [Terry_0.jpg] FOOTBALL: John Terry stripped of captaincy * Domnica Cemortan LOVE BOAT: Dancer was staying in captain's cabin * The Sun - Page Three LEVESON: The end of the Page Three girl? * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: the British army's wasted sacrifice * Charlize Theron in Young Adult FILM: Charlize Theron is a funny bitch * Snow WEATHER: Snow warning issued for England * [wills-kate.jpg] TALKING POINT: Kate and William's new pooch Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 2 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 3 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 4 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers 5 Deja Vu Cheryl Cole Is Cheryl Cole heading for the chat show graveyard? 6 One-Minute Read [katy-perry.jpg] ‘Cockney’ Katy Perry makes an arse of herself as Pippa 7 Video [Mariah%20sailors%20copy.jpg] Mariah Carey loves Royal Navy video of Christmas song 8 One-Minute Read [madonna620.jpg] Madonna and Cirque du Soleil to perform at Super Bowl News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. PREVIOUSNEXT The Week Get 6 Free Issues * get 6 free issues * Give a gift subscription * Subscribe now * Overseas subscription * NEW! iPad edition * Manage subscription Popular Domnica Cemortan 'I love him' says Concordia captain's blonde dancer friend Europe [120205football.jpg] Arsenal fans celebrate 7-1 defeat of Blackburn Football Super Bowl XLVI Who'll win the Super Bowl? 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 8 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 35 minutes ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 18 hours ago * District of Chic Ulyana stalking 1 day ago * What I Wore Vintage & Modern: Polka Dot Dress 1 day ago * Videogum Monsters’ Ball: The Week’s Best Comments 1 day ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 2 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 6 days ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 8 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... Your name: ____________________ Your e-mail address: ____________________ Friends e-mail address: ____________________ Send Free Joke of the Day Script Joke Search Bookmark Us Shop at Amazon! Links Add Your Link Link To Us Webrings Submit a Joke Why not send us a joke? Just about all jokes sent will be uploaded to the website, and your joke might even end up as joke of the day sometime. Send us any joke you want to. If you want to send a lot of short jokes, put all of them in the "Joke" box and put the category name in the "Name of Joke" box. Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,562,793,074 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Sunday 05 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Culture Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. The Big Yin’s not laughing any more 2. Billy Connolly heckled off stage for second time in a week 3. If Billy Connolly's asking for trouble he should know how to deal with it 4. Daniel Radcliffe: 'I was drunk during Harry Potter filming' 5. Actor Ben Gazzara dies aged 81 1. Billy Connolly heckled off stage for second time in a week 2. Carlos Fuentes: legalise drugs to save Mexico 3. Daniel Radcliffe: 'my drinking was so bad I blacked out' 4. Daniel Radcliffe: 'I was drunk during Harry Potter filming' 5. REM's Everybody Hurts voted most depressing song of all time 1. Billy Connolly heckled off stage for second time in a week 2. Sherlock: How did Holmes fake his own death? 3. India demands apology over Top Gear 'India special' 4. 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Try this delicious raspberry pancake recipe View Back to top Hot Topics * Weather * Politics * Syria * US Election 2012 * Football * Six Nations * Make Britain Count * More... * News * Politics * World News * Obituaries * Travel * Health * Jobs * Sport * Football * Cricket * Fantasy Football * Culture * Motoring * Dating * Finance * Personal Finance * Economics * Markets * Fashion * Property * Crossword * Comment * Blogs * My Telegraph * Letters * Technology * Gardening * Telegraph Journalists * Contact Us * Privacy and Cookies * Advertising * A to Z * Tickets * Announcements * Reader Prints * * * Follow Us * Apps * Epaper * Expat * Promotions * Subscriber * Syndication © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012 Terms and Conditions Today's News Archive Style Book Weather Forecast http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8871898/Channel-Four-crit icised-over-David-Walliamss-disgusting-joke.html DCSIMG #RSS Feed for BBC articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Sunday 05 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. Brand and Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, both resigned. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8557822/BBC-in-decenc y-row-over-obscene-joke-by-Sandi-Toksvig.html Telegraph BBC * News » * UK News » * TV and Radio » * Heidi Blake » In BBC TV Guide TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings New BBC One nature series Earthflight gives us a bird's eye view of the world Earthflight: a bird's eye view of the world Miss Havisham summary image Great Expectations: Miss Havisham on film A visitor stands next to the 3D mural painted by Eduardo Relero called, ìInsesatezî, in Lleida, Spain: Eduardo Relero's Incredible 3D Art Amazing 3D street art A sea lion chases a gentoo penguin onto land - both are like fish out of water and the sea lion struggles to make a kill. 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 278319 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 278,319Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. 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[anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your first name: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 6. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html Telegraph UK News * News » In UK News Britain shivers as cold snap brings snow and winter weather Frozen Britain The Falklands War in pictures The Falklands War Chris Huhne Chris Huhne in pictures Sony World Photography Awards 2012 shortlist Sony World Photography Awards The World of Charles Dickens: photos of locations mentioned in his books The World of Charles Dickens X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO Brock Lesnar retires after losing at UFC 141 Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is the answer to this not a joke but a? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What do jokes do? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do people joke because they are a joke? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the scarborough joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] When were jokes made? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] How do you computer joke? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do you say 'to do a joke' or 'to make a joke'? * What makes a joke a joke? * What IT jokes are there? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is the longest joke? » More Featured guides * What Is Trex Decking? * Best Wireless Internet Service Providers * How to Draw Animals * How To Find Legitimate Work From Home Jobs * How To Whiten Teeth Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Sunday, 5 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 5 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 5 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - Durand Arnaud * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - j-c Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Super Bowl XLVI SUPER BOWL: all you need to know about XLVI * [Terry_0.jpg] FOOTBALL: John Terry stripped of captaincy * Domnica Cemortan LOVE BOAT: Dancer was staying in captain's cabin * The Sun - Page Three LEVESON: The end of the Page Three girl? * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: the British army's wasted sacrifice * Charlize Theron in Young Adult FILM: Charlize Theron is a funny bitch * Snow WEATHER: Snow warning issued for England * [wills-kate.jpg] TALKING POINT: Kate and William's new pooch Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 2 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 3 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 4 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers 5 Deja Vu Cheryl Cole Is Cheryl Cole heading for the chat show graveyard? 6 One-Minute Read [katy-perry.jpg] ‘Cockney’ Katy Perry makes an arse of herself as Pippa 7 Video [Mariah%20sailors%20copy.jpg] Mariah Carey loves Royal Navy video of Christmas song 8 One-Minute Read [madonna620.jpg] Madonna and Cirque du Soleil to perform at Super Bowl News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. PREVIOUSNEXT The Week Get 6 Free Issues * get 6 free issues * Give a gift subscription * Subscribe now * Overseas subscription * NEW! iPad edition * Manage subscription Popular Domnica Cemortan 'I love him' says Concordia captain's blonde dancer friend Europe [120205football.jpg] Arsenal fans celebrate 7-1 defeat of Blackburn Football Super Bowl XLVI Who'll win the Super Bowl? 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 8 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 39 minutes ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 18 hours ago * District of Chic Ulyana stalking 1 day ago * What I Wore Vintage & Modern: Polka Dot Dress 1 day ago * Videogum Monsters’ Ball: The Week’s Best Comments 1 day ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 2 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 6 days ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 8 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... Your name: ____________________ Your e-mail address: ____________________ Friends e-mail address: ____________________ Send Free Joke of the Day Script Joke Search Bookmark Us Shop at Amazon! Links Add Your Link Link To Us Webrings Submit a Joke Why not send us a joke? Just about all jokes sent will be uploaded to the website, and your joke might even end up as joke of the day sometime. Send us any joke you want to. 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Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,562,796,050 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Sunday 05 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 278319 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 278,319Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. 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[anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. Amazing. reply Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-best-of-the-business-cat-meme.jpg?version=1328232910000] vote on this The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme ... * [the-very-best-of-the-hipster-ariel-meme.jpg?version=1328388912000] vote on this The Very Best of the Hipster Ariel Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Lonely Computer Guy ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Guido Jesus Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Nyan Cat Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] The Very Best of the Scumbag Stacy Meme more by Robert Wabash * The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme * The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme * The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme * The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faceb ook.com%2Franker&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_col or=%23cacaca&stream=false&header=false&height=256 Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-very-best-of-the-courage-wolf-meme.jpg?version=1327850421000] vote on this The Very Best of the Courage Wolf Meme * [the-christian-god-is-a-troll-best-of-the-advice-god-meme.jpg?versi on=1306958448000] God is an Epic Troll: The Best of the Advice God Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Futurama Fry Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Tech Impaired Duck Meme ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Horrifying Houseguest ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Butthurt Dweller Meme ... 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your city: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 6. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475173128" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 5 February 2012 at 08:07. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html Telegraph UK News * News » In UK News Britain shivers as cold snap brings snow and winter weather Frozen Britain The Falklands War in pictures The Falklands War Chris Huhne Chris Huhne in pictures Sony World Photography Awards 2012 shortlist Sony World Photography Awards The World of Charles Dickens: photos of locations mentioned in his books The World of Charles Dickens X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 2. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 3. Turbulence ahead with Indian jet deal 4. Contents of Queen's handbag revealed: including £5 for church collection 5. The lessons of the fall of communism have still not been learnt 1. Prince William deploys to Falkland Islands as tensions rise with Argentina 2. Sainsbury's Tiger bread becomes Giraffe bread on advice of 3 year-old 3. Afghan couple killed three teenage daughters in honour killing 4. Costa Concordia: 'clothing and lingerie of Moldovan dancer found in Captain Schettino's cabin' 5. Is this the worst Valentine's Day card ever? 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Royal Navy sends its mightiest ship to take on the Iranian show of force in the Gulf 3. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 4. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs 5. White House 'covered up' Tim Burton-staged Alice in Wonderland Halloween party Editor's Choice » The Big Yin’s not laughing any more Are you having a laugh? Billy Connolly and wife Pamela Stephenson After 40 years in the job, why is Billy Connolly walking off stage in a huff, wonders William Langley. Comments Rose Hudson-Wilkin: the Right Rev? Is David Cameron more yellow than blue? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets Groundhog handler John Griffith holds famed weather prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil before Phil makes his annual weather prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 126th Groundhog Day. Phil saw his shadow, signalling six more weeks of winter. Groundhog Day 2012 Michelle Obama takes on push-up challenge from daytime chat show host Ellen Degeneres First Lady in push-up challenge Cat sandwiches X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Afghan couple killed three teenage daughters in honour killing 4. Costa Concordia: 'clothing and lingerie of Moldovan dancer found in Captain Schettino's cabin' 5. Is this the worst Valentine's Day card ever? 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Royal Navy sends its mightiest ship to take on the Iranian show of force in the Gulf 3. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 4. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs 5. White House 'covered up' Tim Burton-staged Alice in Wonderland Halloween party Editor's Choice » The Big Yin’s not laughing any more Are you having a laugh? Billy Connolly and wife Pamela Stephenson After 40 years in the job, why is Billy Connolly walking off stage in a huff, wonders William Langley. Comments Rose Hudson-Wilkin: the Right Rev? Is David Cameron more yellow than blue? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO Brock Lesnar retires after losing at UFC 141 Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is the answer to this not a joke but a? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What do jokes do? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do people joke because they are a joke? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the scarborough joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] When were jokes made? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] How do you computer joke? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do you say 'to do a joke' or 'to make a joke'? * What makes a joke a joke? * What IT jokes are there? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is the longest joke? » More Featured guides * Home Equity Loan * How Do Rent-to-Own Homes Work? * Compare Fitness Equipment * Best Price John Deere Lawn Tractors * DSL Internet Provider Reviews Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Sunday, 5 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 5 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 5 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - Durand Arnaud * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - j-c Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Super Bowl XLVI SUPER BOWL: all you need to know about XLVI * [Terry_0.jpg] FOOTBALL: John Terry stripped of captaincy * Domnica Cemortan LOVE BOAT: Dancer was staying in captain's cabin * The Sun - Page Three LEVESON: The end of the Page Three girl? * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: the British army's wasted sacrifice * Charlize Theron in Young Adult FILM: Charlize Theron is a funny bitch * Snow WEATHER: Snow warning issued for England * [wills-kate.jpg] TALKING POINT: Kate and William's new pooch Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 2 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 3 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 4 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers 5 Deja Vu Cheryl Cole Is Cheryl Cole heading for the chat show graveyard? 6 One-Minute Read [katy-perry.jpg] ‘Cockney’ Katy Perry makes an arse of herself as Pippa 7 Video [Mariah%20sailors%20copy.jpg] Mariah Carey loves Royal Navy video of Christmas song 8 One-Minute Read [madonna620.jpg] Madonna and Cirque du Soleil to perform at Super Bowl News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. PREVIOUSNEXT The Week Get 6 Free Issues * get 6 free issues * Give a gift subscription * Subscribe now * Overseas subscription * NEW! iPad edition * Manage subscription Popular Domnica Cemortan 'I love him' says Concordia captain's blonde dancer friend Europe [120205football.jpg] Arsenal fans celebrate 7-1 defeat of Blackburn Football Super Bowl XLVI Who'll win the Super Bowl? 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 8 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 39 minutes ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 18 hours ago * District of Chic Ulyana stalking 1 day ago * What I Wore Vintage & Modern: Polka Dot Dress 1 day ago * Videogum Monsters’ Ball: The Week’s Best Comments 1 day ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 2 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 6 days ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 8 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. 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Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,562,803,413 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Sunday 05 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. Brand and Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, both resigned. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8557822/BBC-in-decenc y-row-over-obscene-joke-by-Sandi-Toksvig.html Telegraph BBC * News » * UK News » * TV and Radio » * Heidi Blake » In BBC TV Guide TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings New BBC One nature series Earthflight gives us a bird's eye view of the world Earthflight: a bird's eye view of the world Miss Havisham summary image Great Expectations: Miss Havisham on film A visitor stands next to the 3D mural painted by Eduardo Relero called, ìInsesatezî, in Lleida, Spain: Eduardo Relero's Incredible 3D Art Amazing 3D street art A sea lion chases a gentoo penguin onto land - both are like fish out of water and the sea lion struggles to make a kill. 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Anti Joke Anti Joke logo « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 2995 2996 Next » What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +12726 Spinner 191 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-worse-than-finding-a-worm-in-yo ur-apple----the-holocaust--2 &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook An Irishman walks out of a bar. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9408 Spinner 41 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fan-irishman-walks-out-of-a-bar &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why did the boy drop his ice cream? Because he was hit by a bus. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9212 Spinner 43 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-did-the-boy-drop-his-ice-cream--b ecause-he-was-hit-by-a-bus &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock knock. Who's there? To. To who? To whom. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8532 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----to----to -who----to-whom &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Q: What is red and smells like blue paint? A: Red paint. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8454 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fq-what-is-red-and-smells-like-blue-pa int----a-red-paint &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have a gun. Get in the van. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7917 Spinner 77 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Froses-are-red--violets-are-blue--i-ha ve-a-gun--get-in-the-van &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook A dyslexic man walks into a bra. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7628 Spinner 54 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fa-dyslexic-man-walks-into-a-bra &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Whats green and has wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7059 Spinner 26 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-green-and-has-wheels----grass-i -lied-about-the-wheels &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook How do you confuse a blond? Paint yourself green and throw forks at her. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +6205 Spinner 42 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fhow-do-you-confuse-a-blond----paint-y ourself-green-and-throw-forks-at-her &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook What's sad about 4 black people in a Cadillac going over a cliff? They were my friends. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5943 Spinner 30 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-sad-about-4-black-people-in-a-c adillac-going-over-a-cliff----they-were-my-friends &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why was six afraid of seven? It wasn't. Numbers are not sentient and thus incapable of feeling fear. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5424 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-was-six-afraid-of-seven----it-was nt-numbers-are-not-sentient-and-thus-incapable-of-feeling-fear &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock, Knock. Who's there? Dave. Dave who? Dave proceeds to break into tears as his grandmother's Alzheimers has progressed to the point where she can no longer remember him. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +4987 Spinner 15 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----dave---- dave-who----dave-proceeds-to-break-into-tears-as-his-grandmothers-a lzheimers-has-progressed-to-the-point-where-she-can-no-longer-remem ber-him &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 2995 2996 Next » Anti Joke What are Antijokes? Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of comedy in which the uses is set up to expect a typical joke setup however the joke ends with such anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. The lack of punchline is the punchline. MOAR?? Want more? You might be interested in… [yS9He.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken [cK42n.jpg] Anti-Joke Triceratops Download Our Free App! Hay guise, our iPhone app was just approved! available on the app store! 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 278346 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 278,346Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up any word, like bootylicious: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 6. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475173128" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 5 February 2012 at 08:07. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO Brock Lesnar retires after losing at UFC 141 Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is the answer to this not a joke but a? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What do jokes do? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do people joke because they are a joke? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the scarborough joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] When were jokes made? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] How do you computer joke? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do you say 'to do a joke' or 'to make a joke'? * What makes a joke a joke? * What IT jokes are there? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is the longest joke? » More Featured guides * Auto Salvage Parts * How To Search For A Job * How to Install a Car Amplifier * Compare New And Used Cars * How to Learn English Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Sunday, 5 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 5 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 5 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - Durand Arnaud * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - j-c Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Super Bowl XLVI SUPER BOWL: all you need to know about XLVI * [Terry_0.jpg] FOOTBALL: John Terry stripped of captaincy * Domnica Cemortan LOVE BOAT: Dancer was staying in captain's cabin * The Sun - Page Three LEVESON: The end of the Page Three girl? * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: the British army's wasted sacrifice * Charlize Theron in Young Adult FILM: Charlize Theron is a funny bitch * Snow WEATHER: Snow warning issued for England * [wills-kate.jpg] TALKING POINT: Kate and William's new pooch Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 2 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 3 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 4 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers 5 Deja Vu Cheryl Cole Is Cheryl Cole heading for the chat show graveyard? 6 One-Minute Read [katy-perry.jpg] ‘Cockney’ Katy Perry makes an arse of herself as Pippa 7 Video [Mariah%20sailors%20copy.jpg] Mariah Carey loves Royal Navy video of Christmas song 8 One-Minute Read [madonna620.jpg] Madonna and Cirque du Soleil to perform at Super Bowl News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. PREVIOUSNEXT The Week Get 6 Free Issues * get 6 free issues * Give a gift subscription * Subscribe now * Overseas subscription * NEW! iPad edition * Manage subscription Popular Domnica Cemortan 'I love him' says Concordia captain's blonde dancer friend Europe [120205football.jpg] Arsenal fans celebrate 7-1 defeat of Blackburn Football Super Bowl XLVI Who'll win the Super Bowl? 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 8 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 55 minutes ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 18 hours ago * District of Chic Ulyana stalking 1 day ago * What I Wore Vintage & Modern: Polka Dot Dress 1 day ago * Videogum Monsters’ Ball: The Week’s Best Comments 1 day ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 2 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 6 days ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 8 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... Your name: ____________________ Your e-mail address: ____________________ Friends e-mail address: ____________________ Send Free Joke of the Day Script Joke Search Bookmark Us Shop at Amazon! Links Add Your Link Link To Us Webrings Submit a Joke Why not send us a joke? Just about all jokes sent will be uploaded to the website, and your joke might even end up as joke of the day sometime. Send us any joke you want to. If you want to send a lot of short jokes, put all of them in the "Joke" box and put the category name in the "Name of Joke" box. Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,562,818,151 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Sunday 05 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Culture Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. The Big Yin’s not laughing any more 2. Billy Connolly heckled off stage for second time in a week 3. If Billy Connolly's asking for trouble he should know how to deal with it 4. Daniel Radcliffe: 'I was drunk during Harry Potter filming' 5. Actor Ben Gazzara dies aged 81 1. Billy Connolly heckled off stage for second time in a week 2. Carlos Fuentes: legalise drugs to save Mexico 3. Daniel Radcliffe: 'my drinking was so bad I blacked out' 4. Daniel Radcliffe: 'I was drunk during Harry Potter filming' 5. REM's Everybody Hurts voted most depressing song of all time 1. Billy Connolly heckled off stage for second time in a week 2. Sherlock: How did Holmes fake his own death? 3. India demands apology over Top Gear 'India special' 4. 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. Brand and Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, both resigned. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8557822/BBC-in-decenc y-row-over-obscene-joke-by-Sandi-Toksvig.html Telegraph BBC * News » * UK News » * TV and Radio » * Heidi Blake » In BBC TV Guide TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings New BBC One nature series Earthflight gives us a bird's eye view of the world Earthflight: a bird's eye view of the world Miss Havisham summary image Great Expectations: Miss Havisham on film A visitor stands next to the 3D mural painted by Eduardo Relero called, ìInsesatezî, in Lleida, Spain: Eduardo Relero's Incredible 3D Art Amazing 3D street art A sea lion chases a gentoo penguin onto land - both are like fish out of water and the sea lion struggles to make a kill. 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Dave proceeds to break into tears as his grandmother's Alzheimers has progressed to the point where she can no longer remember him. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +4987 Spinner 15 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----dave---- dave-who----dave-proceeds-to-break-into-tears-as-his-grandmothers-a lzheimers-has-progressed-to-the-point-where-she-can-no-longer-remem ber-him &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 2995 2996 Next » Anti Joke What are Antijokes? Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of comedy in which the uses is set up to expect a typical joke setup however the joke ends with such anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. The lack of punchline is the punchline. MOAR?? Want more? 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 278319 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 278,319Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. 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[anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your first name: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 6. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475173128" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 5 February 2012 at 08:07. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html Telegraph UK News * News » In UK News Britain shivers as cold snap brings snow and winter weather Frozen Britain The Falklands War in pictures The Falklands War Chris Huhne Chris Huhne in pictures Sony World Photography Awards 2012 shortlist Sony World Photography Awards The World of Charles Dickens: photos of locations mentioned in his books The World of Charles Dickens X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 2. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 3. Turbulence ahead with Indian jet deal 4. Contents of Queen's handbag revealed: including £5 for church collection 5. The lessons of the fall of communism have still not been learnt 1. Prince William deploys to Falkland Islands as tensions rise with Argentina 2. Sainsbury's Tiger bread becomes Giraffe bread on advice of 3 year-old 3. 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets Groundhog handler John Griffith holds famed weather prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil before Phil makes his annual weather prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 126th Groundhog Day. Phil saw his shadow, signalling six more weeks of winter. Groundhog Day 2012 Michelle Obama takes on push-up challenge from daytime chat show host Ellen Degeneres First Lady in push-up challenge Cat sandwiches X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. Rowling At Amazon #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed George Carlin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO Brock Lesnar retires after losing at UFC 141 Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=40c0a5e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is the answer to this not a joke but a? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What do jokes do? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do people joke because they are a joke? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the scarborough joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] When were jokes made? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] How do you computer joke? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do you say 'to do a joke' or 'to make a joke'? * What makes a joke a joke? * What IT jokes are there? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is the longest joke? » More Featured guides * How To Make A Wedding Registry * Fast Weight Loss Exercise Plans * How To Raise HDL Cholesterol * Treatment For Heartburn * Two's Company Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Sunday, 5 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 5 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 5 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - Durand Arnaud * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - j-c Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... 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In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. PREVIOUSNEXT The Week Get 6 Free Issues * get 6 free issues * Give a gift subscription * Subscribe now * Overseas subscription * NEW! iPad edition * Manage subscription Popular Domnica Cemortan 'I love him' says Concordia captain's blonde dancer friend Europe [120205football.jpg] Arsenal fans celebrate 7-1 defeat of Blackburn Football Super Bowl XLVI Who'll win the Super Bowl? 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Jubilee: how to organise a street party The Queen in Numbers, Part 1 Diamond Jubilee: Royal Quiz, Week 1 In pics: the accession of Queen Elizabeth II Advertisement Featured Advertising * UK Breaks * Property * Culture Loading ______________________ Submit MORE FROM TELEGRAPH.CO.UK TELEGRAPH COURSES Target Train for a professional Project Management qualification View TELEGRAPH JOBS General engineering degree course guide Search for jobs in Manufacturing: opportunities across the UK View TELEGRAPH JOBS Engineering, Sales and Procurement opportunities at Jaguar Land Rover View TELEGRAPH JOBS Search for jobs in Oil & Gas jobs: UK and International opportunities View Back to top Hot Topics * Weather * The Queen's Diamond Jubilee * Syria * US Election 2012 * Football * Six Nations * Make Britain Count * More... * News * Politics * World News * Obituaries * Travel * Health * Jobs * Sport * Football * Cricket * Fantasy Football * Culture * Motoring * Dating * Finance * Personal Finance * Economics * Markets * Fashion * Property * Crossword * Comment * Blogs * My Telegraph * Letters * Technology * Gardening * Telegraph Journalists * Contact Us * Privacy and Cookies * Advertising * A to Z * Tickets * Announcements * Reader Prints * * * Follow Us * Apps * Epaper * Expat * Promotions * Subscriber * Syndication © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012 Terms and Conditions Today's News Archive Style Book Weather Forecast http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html DCSIMG REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 #RSS Feed for How about that? articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Monday 06 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * UK * World * Politics * Obituaries * Education * Earth * Science * Defence * Health News * Royal Family * Celebrities * Weird News 1. Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets Groundhog handler John Griffith holds famed weather prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil before Phil makes his annual weather prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 126th Groundhog Day. Phil saw his shadow, signalling six more weeks of winter. Groundhog Day 2012 Michelle Obama takes on push-up challenge from daytime chat show host Ellen Degeneres First Lady in push-up challenge Cat sandwiches X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. Just three inches of snow halts half of all flights at Heathrow 2. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 3. John F Kennedy’s mistress details their affair in new book 4. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 5. Queen renews her dedication to the nation in jubilee message 1. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 2. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 3. 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Jubilee: how to organise a street party The Queen in Numbers, Part 1 Diamond Jubilee: Royal Quiz, Week 1 In pics: the accession of Queen Elizabeth II Advertisement Featured Advertising * Motoring * Culture * Gifts Loading MORE FROM TELEGRAPH.CO.UK TELEGRAPH COURSES Target Train for a professional Project Management qualification View TELEGRAPH JOBS General engineering degree course guide Search for jobs in Manufacturing: opportunities across the UK View TELEGRAPH JOBS Engineering, Sales and Procurement opportunities at Jaguar Land Rover View TELEGRAPH JOBS Search for jobs in Oil & Gas jobs: UK and International opportunities View Back to top Hot Topics * Weather * The Queen's Diamond Jubilee * Syria * US Election 2012 * Football * Six Nations * Make Britain Count * More... * News * Politics * World News * Obituaries * Travel * Health * Jobs * Sport * Football * Cricket * Fantasy Football * Culture * Motoring * Dating * Finance * Personal Finance * Economics * Markets * Fashion * Property * Crossword * Comment * Blogs * My Telegraph * Letters * Technology * Gardening * Telegraph Journalists * Contact Us * Privacy and Cookies * Advertising * A to Z * Tickets * Announcements * Reader Prints * * * Follow Us * Apps * Epaper * Expat * Promotions * Subscriber * Syndication © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012 Terms and Conditions Today's News Archive Style Book Weather Forecast http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html DCSIMG REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 REFRESH(5 sec): https://login.wifi.inalco.fr/index.php3?VR=2&ITF=eth2.25 #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum The Videogum Why Don’t YOU Caption It? Contest: Terry Richardson And Lindsay Lohan 35 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 6 hours ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 18 hours ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 2 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... Your name: ____________________ Your e-mail address: ____________________ Friends e-mail address: ____________________ Send Free Joke of the Day Script Joke Search Bookmark Us Shop at Amazon! Links Add Your Link Link To Us Webrings Submit a Joke Why not send us a joke? Just about all jokes sent will be uploaded to the website, and your joke might even end up as joke of the day sometime. Send us any joke you want to. If you want to send a lot of short jokes, put all of them in the "Joke" box and put the category name in the "Name of Joke" box. Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,569,776,542 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.03 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I'm like JR Hartley' 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: "The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour." An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Ranker.com - List it. Rank it. Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 279671 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 279,671Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. 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[anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. Amazing. reply Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-best-of-the-business-cat-meme.jpg?version=1328598022000] vote on this The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme ... * [the-very-best-of-the-hipster-ariel-meme.jpg?version=1328388912000] vote on this The Very Best of the Hipster Ariel Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Lonely Computer Guy ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Guido Jesus Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Nyan Cat Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] The Very Best of the Scumbag Stacy Meme more by Robert Wabash * The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme * The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme * The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme * The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faceb ook.com%2Franker&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_col or=%23cacaca&stream=false&header=false&height=256 Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-very-best-of-the-courage-wolf-meme.jpg?version=1327850421000] vote on this The Very Best of the Courage Wolf Meme * [the-christian-god-is-a-troll-best-of-the-advice-god-meme.jpg?versi on=1306958448000] God is an Epic Troll: The Best of the Advice God Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Futurama Fry Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Tech Impaired Duck Meme ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Horrifying Houseguest ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Butthurt Dweller Meme ... 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your first name: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html Telegraph UK News * News » In UK News Dickens Charles Dickens's birthday A dog leaps through deep snow in Great Chart near Ashford, Kent Winter wonderland? Readers' snow photos Readers' snow photos Britain shivers as cold snap brings snow and winter weather Frozen Britain The Falklands War in pictures The Falklands War X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 2. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 3. Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Prince William deploys to Falkland Islands as tensions rise with Argentina 4. Sainsbury's Tiger bread becomes Giraffe bread on advice of 3 year-old 5. Costa Concordia: 'clothing and lingerie of Moldovan dancer found in Captain Schettino's cabin' 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 3. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs 4. White House 'covered up' Tim Burton-staged Alice in Wonderland Halloween party 5. Britain, US and France send warships through Strait of Hormuz Editor's Choice » How do we help get rid of Assad? Gearing up for a fight: Free Syrian Army recruits doing weapons training yesterday - How do we help get rid of President Bashar al-Assad? Unlike former rebels in Libya, Syrian rebels are fragmented and don’t control even a corner of the country. Alex Spillius reports. Comments The changing face of our monarch What Charles Dickens said about money What song would you play to impress date? What does India want from Britain? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? Pictures of the day Pictures of the day Chewing gum art Chewing gum art The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets Groundhog handler John Griffith holds famed weather prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil before Phil makes his annual weather prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 126th Groundhog Day. Phil saw his shadow, signalling six more weeks of winter. Groundhog Day 2012 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 2. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 3. Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Roman Catholic leaders criticise Barack Obama over healthcare 5. CCTV police officer 'chased himself' after being mistaken for burglar 1. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 2. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 3. Prince William deploys to Falkland Islands as tensions rise with Argentina 4. Sainsbury's Tiger bread becomes Giraffe bread on advice of 3 year-old 5. Costa Concordia: 'clothing and lingerie of Moldovan dancer found in Captain Schettino's cabin' 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 3. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs 4. White House 'covered up' Tim Burton-staged Alice in Wonderland Halloween party 5. Britain, US and France send warships through Strait of Hormuz Editor's Choice » How do we help get rid of Assad? Gearing up for a fight: Free Syrian Army recruits doing weapons training yesterday - How do we help get rid of President Bashar al-Assad? Unlike former rebels in Libya, Syrian rebels are fragmented and don’t control even a corner of the country. Alex Spillius reports. 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=1c50829]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=1c50829]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What makes a joke a joke? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * How to Remove a Tree * High Fiber Diet Plans * Choosing The Right Wireless Plan * Choosing A Car Battery * Choosing A Family Cell Phone Plan Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * What does it mean to write a critical appreciation on a literary work? Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Tuesday, 7 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search Recent posts * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 * New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Not crap * Aha! Jokes * Chortle * East meets Jest Comedy * Edinburgh Fringe 2011 * HumorLinks * Jokes Place * Vicky's Jokes * Work Joke Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] Follow CJotD on twitter! * @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago * Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago * A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago * Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago * @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! RSS feed * RSS - Posts AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... 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News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum The Videogum Why Don’t YOU Caption It? Contest: Terry Richardson And Lindsay Lohan 1 hour ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 6 hours ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 19 hours ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 2 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... 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Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,569,843,743 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.02 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Tuesday 07 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home>> 2. Culture>> 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I'm like JR Hartley' 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: "The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour." An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. Brand and Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, both resigned. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8557822/BBC-in-decenc y-row-over-obscene-joke-by-Sandi-Toksvig.html Telegraph BBC * News » * UK News » * TV and Radio » * Heidi Blake » In BBC TV Guide TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings New BBC One nature series Earthflight gives us a bird's eye view of the world Earthflight: a bird's eye view of the world Miss Havisham summary image Great Expectations: Miss Havisham on film A visitor stands next to the 3D mural painted by Eduardo Relero called, ìInsesatezî, in Lleida, Spain: Eduardo Relero's Incredible 3D Art Amazing 3D street art A sea lion chases a gentoo penguin onto land - both are like fish out of water and the sea lion struggles to make a kill. 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Anti Joke Anti Joke logo « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3011 3012 Next » What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +12774 Spinner 192 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-worse-than-finding-a-worm-in-yo ur-apple----the-holocaust--2 &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook An Irishman walks out of a bar. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9440 Spinner 41 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fan-irishman-walks-out-of-a-bar &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why did the boy drop his ice cream? Because he was hit by a bus. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9242 Spinner 43 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-did-the-boy-drop-his-ice-cream--b ecause-he-was-hit-by-a-bus &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock knock. Who's there? To. To who? To whom. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8553 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----to----to -who----to-whom &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Q: What is red and smells like blue paint? A: Red paint. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8485 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fq-what-is-red-and-smells-like-blue-pa int----a-red-paint &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have a gun. Get in the van. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7957 Spinner 79 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Froses-are-red--violets-are-blue--i-ha ve-a-gun--get-in-the-van &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook A dyslexic man walks into a bra. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7652 Spinner 54 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fa-dyslexic-man-walks-into-a-bra &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Whats green and has wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7080 Spinner 26 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-green-and-has-wheels----grass-i -lied-about-the-wheels &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook How do you confuse a blond? Paint yourself green and throw forks at her. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +6226 Spinner 42 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fhow-do-you-confuse-a-blond----paint-y ourself-green-and-throw-forks-at-her &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook What's sad about 4 black people in a Cadillac going over a cliff? They were my friends. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5960 Spinner 30 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-sad-about-4-black-people-in-a-c adillac-going-over-a-cliff----they-were-my-friends &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why was six afraid of seven? It wasn't. Numbers are not sentient and thus incapable of feeling fear. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5443 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-was-six-afraid-of-seven----it-was nt-numbers-are-not-sentient-and-thus-incapable-of-feeling-fear &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock, Knock. Who's there? Dave. Dave who? Dave proceeds to break into tears as his grandmother's Alzheimers has progressed to the point where she can no longer remember him. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5008 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----dave---- dave-who----dave-proceeds-to-break-into-tears-as-his-grandmothers-a lzheimers-has-progressed-to-the-point-where-she-can-no-longer-remem ber-him &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3011 3012 Next » Anti Joke What are Antijokes? Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of comedy in which the uses is set up to expect a typical joke setup however the joke ends with such anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. The lack of punchline is the punchline. MOAR?? Want more? 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 279688 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 279,688Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. Amazing. reply Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-best-of-the-business-cat-meme.jpg?version=1328598022000] vote on this The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme ... * [the-very-best-of-the-hipster-ariel-meme.jpg?version=1328388912000] vote on this The Very Best of the Hipster Ariel Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Lonely Computer Guy ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Guido Jesus Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Nyan Cat Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] The Very Best of the Scumbag Stacy Meme more by Robert Wabash * The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme * The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme * The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme * The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faceb ook.com%2Franker&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_col or=%23cacaca&stream=false&header=false&height=256 Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-very-best-of-the-courage-wolf-meme.jpg?version=1327850421000] vote on this The Very Best of the Courage Wolf Meme * [the-christian-god-is-a-troll-best-of-the-advice-god-meme.jpg?versi on=1306958448000] God is an Epic Troll: The Best of the Advice God Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Futurama Fry Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Tech Impaired Duck Meme ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Horrifying Houseguest ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Butthurt Dweller Meme ... 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up any word: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html Telegraph UK News * News » In UK News Dickens Charles Dickens's birthday A dog leaps through deep snow in Great Chart near Ashford, Kent Winter wonderland? 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Prince William deploys to Falkland Islands as tensions rise with Argentina 4. Sainsbury's Tiger bread becomes Giraffe bread on advice of 3 year-old 5. Costa Concordia: 'clothing and lingerie of Moldovan dancer found in Captain Schettino's cabin' 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 3. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs 4. White House 'covered up' Tim Burton-staged Alice in Wonderland Halloween party 5. Britain, US and France send warships through Strait of Hormuz Editor's Choice » How do we help get rid of Assad? Gearing up for a fight: Free Syrian Army recruits doing weapons training yesterday - How do we help get rid of President Bashar al-Assad? Unlike former rebels in Libya, Syrian rebels are fragmented and don’t control even a corner of the country. Alex Spillius reports. Comments The changing face of our monarch What Charles Dickens said about money What song would you play to impress date? What does India want from Britain? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? Pictures of the day Pictures of the day Chewing gum art Chewing gum art The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets Groundhog handler John Griffith holds famed weather prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil before Phil makes his annual weather prediction on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on the 126th Groundhog Day. Phil saw his shadow, signalling six more weeks of winter. Groundhog Day 2012 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=1c50829]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=1c50829]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What makes a joke a joke? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * Finding Cheap Flights * How to Straighten Hair * Ceramics for Everyone * Dr. Oz's HCG Diet Plan Explained * How to Invent Something Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * What does it mean to write a critical appreciation on a literary work? Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Tuesday, 7 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search Recent posts * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 * New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 * Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Not crap * Aha! Jokes * Chortle * East meets Jest Comedy * Edinburgh Fringe 2011 * HumorLinks * Jokes Place * Vicky's Jokes * Work Joke Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] Follow CJotD on twitter! * @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago * Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago * A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago * Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago * @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! RSS feed * RSS - Posts AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more. Advertisement Most Popular E-mail Newsletter [most-pop-logo.gif] Sign up to get: Top viewed stories, photo galleries and community posts of the day * Most popular right now: * [most-pop-signup.jpg] USA TODAY Digital Services * Mobile * E-Newsletters * RSS * Twitter * Podcasts * Widgets * e-Edition * USA TODAY for iPad * Kindle Edition * Print Edition * Subscribe to paper * Reprints & Permissions * USA TODAY Topics * Reporter Index * Corrections/Clarifications * Contact Us * Archives * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Tech * Weather * Visit our Partners: * USA WEEKEND * Sports Weekly * Education * Space.com * Travel Tips * Contact us * Advertise * Pressroom * Media Lounge * Jobs * FAQ * Reprints/Permissions * Privacy Notice/Your California Privacy Rights * Ad Choices * Terms of Service * Site Index (c) 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... Ajouter un commentaire Nom ou pseudo : ______________________________ Adresse email : ______________________________ Site web (facultatif) : ______________________________ ______________________________ Commentaire : ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Le code HTML est affiché comme du texte et les adresses web sont automatiquement transformées. prévisualiser La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Fil des commentaires de ce billet Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. 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Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... 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News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum The Videogum Why Don’t YOU Caption It? Contest: Terry Richardson And Lindsay Lohan 1 hour ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 6 hours ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 19 hours ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 2 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 1 year ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum Ha Ha, The River! 3 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 1 day ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 1 day ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 3 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 2 years ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. 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Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,572,677,770 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Anti Joke Anti Joke logo « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3015 3016 Next » What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +12792 Spinner 193 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-worse-than-finding-a-worm-in-yo ur-apple----the-holocaust--2 &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook An Irishman walks out of a bar. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9446 Spinner 41 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fan-irishman-walks-out-of-a-bar &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why did the boy drop his ice cream? Because he was hit by a bus. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9248 Spinner 43 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-did-the-boy-drop-his-ice-cream--b ecause-he-was-hit-by-a-bus &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock knock. Who's there? To. To who? To whom. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8558 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----to----to -who----to-whom &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Q: What is red and smells like blue paint? A: Red paint. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8493 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fq-what-is-red-and-smells-like-blue-pa int----a-red-paint &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have a gun. Get in the van. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7966 Spinner 81 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Froses-are-red--violets-are-blue--i-ha ve-a-gun--get-in-the-van &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook A dyslexic man walks into a bra. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7658 Spinner 54 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fa-dyslexic-man-walks-into-a-bra &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Whats green and has wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7083 Spinner 26 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-green-and-has-wheels----grass-i -lied-about-the-wheels &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook How do you confuse a blond? Paint yourself green and throw forks at her. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +6231 Spinner 42 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fhow-do-you-confuse-a-blond----paint-y ourself-green-and-throw-forks-at-her &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook What's sad about 4 black people in a Cadillac going over a cliff? They were my friends. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5963 Spinner 30 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-sad-about-4-black-people-in-a-c adillac-going-over-a-cliff----they-were-my-friends &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why was six afraid of seven? It wasn't. Numbers are not sentient and thus incapable of feeling fear. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5448 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-was-six-afraid-of-seven----it-was nt-numbers-are-not-sentient-and-thus-incapable-of-feeling-fear &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock, Knock. Who's there? Dave. Dave who? Dave proceeds to break into tears as his grandmother's Alzheimers has progressed to the point where she can no longer remember him. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5016 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----dave---- dave-who----dave-proceeds-to-break-into-tears-as-his-grandmothers-a lzheimers-has-progressed-to-the-point-where-she-can-no-longer-remem ber-him &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3015 3016 Next » Anti Joke What are Antijokes? Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of comedy in which the uses is set up to expect a typical joke setup however the joke ends with such anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. The lack of punchline is the punchline. MOAR?? Want more? 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 280120 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 280,120Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. Amazing. reply Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-best-of-the-business-cat-meme.jpg?version=1328598022000] vote on this The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme ... * [the-very-best-of-the-hipster-ariel-meme.jpg?version=1328388912000] vote on this The Very Best of the Hipster Ariel Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Lonely Computer Guy ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Guido Jesus Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Nyan Cat Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] The Very Best of the Scumbag Stacy Meme more by Robert Wabash * The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme * The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme * The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme * The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faceb ook.com%2Franker&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_col or=%23cacaca&stream=false&header=false&height=256 Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-very-best-of-the-courage-wolf-meme.jpg?version=1327850421000] vote on this The Very Best of the Courage Wolf Meme * [the-christian-god-is-a-troll-best-of-the-advice-god-meme.jpg?versi on=1306958448000] God is an Epic Troll: The Best of the Advice God Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Futurama Fry Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Tech Impaired Duck Meme ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Horrifying Houseguest ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Butthurt Dweller Meme ... 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up any word: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Skinny: The look with endless legs The 'skinny' trouser has become the silhouette-defining garment of our time, says Lisa Armstrong Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is a joke? * What makes a joke a joke? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * How To Get Affordable Dentures * How To Use Craigslist To Find A Job * Finding the Perfect Job * Container Store Coupons * Wireless Internet Provider Reviews Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more. Advertisement Most Popular E-mail Newsletter [most-pop-logo.gif] Sign up to get: Top viewed stories, photo galleries and community posts of the day * Most popular right now: * [most-pop-signup.jpg] USA TODAY Digital Services * Mobile * E-Newsletters * RSS * Twitter * Podcasts * Widgets * e-Edition * USA TODAY for iPad * Kindle Edition * Print Edition * Subscribe to paper * Reprints & Permissions * USA TODAY Topics * Reporter Index * Corrections/Clarifications * Contact Us * Archives * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Tech * Weather * Visit our Partners: * USA WEEKEND * Sports Weekly * Education * Space.com * Travel Tips * Contact us * Advertise * Pressroom * Media Lounge * Jobs * FAQ * Reprints/Permissions * Privacy Notice/Your California Privacy Rights * Ad Choices * Terms of Service * Site Index (c) 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Madonna Lady Gaga world tours MUSIC: Madonna v Lady Gaga rival concerts * Great White SHark SHARKS: How to avoid an attack, or survive one * [stephen-hester.jpg] HIGH PAY: Hester considered quitting over bonus row * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: Boorish, brutal, charismatic Ian Paisley * Syrian opposition flag TALKING POINT: Is Syria ready for change? * [abu-qatada-2.jpg] EXTREMISM: Abu Qatada's 7 hate preachings * [lana-del-rey_0.jpg] MUSIC: Lana Del Rey cancels tour, but UK loves her * Mars ocean SPACE: Evidence of ancient ocean on Mars Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 First Post Madonna Lady Gaga world tours Lady Gaga and Madonna vie for Queen of Pop title 2 One-Minute Read Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker: clash of the football pundits 3 One-Minute Read Alex Hall Jeremy Clarkson a bully says his 'Minnie Mouse' ex-wife 4 Video M.I.A at Super Bowl MIA shows middle finger during Super Bowl halftime show 5 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 6 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 7 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 8 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum Ha Ha, The River! 3 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 1 day ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 1 day ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 3 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 2 years ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. 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Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,572,687,338 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 280120 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 280,120Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your first name: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Skinny: The look with endless legs The 'skinny' trouser has become the silhouette-defining garment of our time, says Lisa Armstrong Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson Presented by Authorama Public Domain Books ____________ Search II There may be something artificial in making a special category for the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we have examined so far were produced through the medium of language. We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What makes a joke a joke? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * How To Get Student Grants For College * How Do Cell Phone Booster Antennas Work? * Where Can I Get EMT Training? * How to Choose a College Major * Lung Cancer Symptoms & Signs Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more. Advertisement Most Popular E-mail Newsletter [most-pop-logo.gif] Sign up to get: Top viewed stories, photo galleries and community posts of the day * Most popular right now: * [most-pop-signup.jpg] USA TODAY Digital Services * Mobile * E-Newsletters * RSS * Twitter * Podcasts * Widgets * e-Edition * USA TODAY for iPad * Kindle Edition * Print Edition * Subscribe to paper * Reprints & Permissions * USA TODAY Topics * Reporter Index * Corrections/Clarifications * Contact Us * Archives * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Tech * Weather * Visit our Partners: * USA WEEKEND * Sports Weekly * Education * Space.com * Travel Tips * Contact us * Advertise * Pressroom * Media Lounge * Jobs * FAQ * Reprints/Permissions * Privacy Notice/Your California Privacy Rights * Ad Choices * Terms of Service * Site Index (c) 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Madonna Lady Gaga world tours MUSIC: Madonna v Lady Gaga rival concerts * Great White SHark SHARKS: How to avoid an attack, or survive one * [stephen-hester.jpg] HIGH PAY: Hester considered quitting over bonus row * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: Boorish, brutal, charismatic Ian Paisley * Syrian opposition flag TALKING POINT: Is Syria ready for change? * [abu-qatada-2.jpg] EXTREMISM: Abu Qatada's 7 hate preachings * [lana-del-rey_0.jpg] MUSIC: Lana Del Rey cancels tour, but UK loves her * Mars ocean SPACE: Evidence of ancient ocean on Mars Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 First Post Madonna Lady Gaga world tours Lady Gaga and Madonna vie for Queen of Pop title 2 One-Minute Read Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker: clash of the football pundits 3 One-Minute Read Alex Hall Jeremy Clarkson a bully says his 'Minnie Mouse' ex-wife 4 Video M.I.A at Super Bowl MIA shows middle finger during Super Bowl halftime show 5 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 6 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 7 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 8 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your first name: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #RSS Feed for UK News articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * UK * World * Politics * Obituaries * Education * Earth * Science * Defence * Health News * Royal Family * Celebrities * Weird News * Road and Rail * Law and Order * Crime * Religion * Scotland * Northern Ireland * Wales 1. Home» 2. News» 3. UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? That’s for other people Free iPads for MPs, clothes allowances for newsreaders..where will gravy train stop for public sector workers, asks Max Davidson. Skinny: The look with endless legs Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? Papier mâché rhino escapes from zoo Pictures of the day Chewing gum art Chewing gum art The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 2. CCTV police officer 'chased himself' after being mistaken for burglar 3. Cristina Kirchner says Britain 'militarising' South Atlantic 4. Mick Aston quits Time Team after producers hire former model co-presenter 5. Argentina to complain to UN over 'militarisation' of Falklands 1. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 2. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 3. Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. 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About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. Humor In Duranti, Alessandro, ed. Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum Ha Ha, The River! 22 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 1 day ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 1 day ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 3 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 2 years ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... Your name: ____________________ Your e-mail address: ____________________ Friends e-mail address: ____________________ Send Free Joke of the Day Script Joke Search Bookmark Us Shop at Amazon! Links Add Your Link Link To Us Webrings Submit a Joke Why not send us a joke? Just about all jokes sent will be uploaded to the website, and your joke might even end up as joke of the day sometime. Send us any joke you want to. 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Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,572,725,404 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 280142 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 280,142Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. 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[anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. Amazing. reply Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-best-of-the-business-cat-meme.jpg?version=1328598022000] vote on this The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme ... * [the-very-best-of-the-hipster-ariel-meme.jpg?version=1328388912000] vote on this The Very Best of the Hipster Ariel Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Lonely Computer Guy ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Guido Jesus Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Nyan Cat Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] The Very Best of the Scumbag Stacy Meme more by Robert Wabash * The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme * The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme * The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme * The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faceb ook.com%2Franker&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_col or=%23cacaca&stream=false&header=false&height=256 Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-very-best-of-the-courage-wolf-meme.jpg?version=1327850421000] vote on this The Very Best of the Courage Wolf Meme * [the-christian-god-is-a-troll-best-of-the-advice-god-meme.jpg?versi on=1306958448000] God is an Epic Troll: The Best of the Advice God Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Futurama Fry Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Tech Impaired Duck Meme ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Horrifying Houseguest ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Butthurt Dweller Meme ... 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up anything, like your first name: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes- revealed-by-university-research.html Telegraph UK News * News » In UK News UK weather in pictures Winter weather in Britain Eli and David, 1996 Lucian Freud's last portrait unveiled Dickens Charles Dickens's birthday A dog leaps through deep snow in Great Chart near Ashford, Kent Winter wonderland? Readers' snow photos Readers' snow photos X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? That’s for other people Free iPads for MPs, clothes allowances for newsreaders..where will gravy train stop for public sector workers, asks Max Davidson. Skinny: The look with endless legs Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? Advertisement Featured Advertising * VistaPrint * Courses * Jobs Loading Search for the full range of VistaPrint services Find a course with Telegraph Courses Find your ideal job with Telegraph Jobs MORE FROM TELEGRAPH.CO.UK MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 Revolutionise your business - win Microsoft Office 365 View FANTASY FOOTBALL Pick your free team for the Champions League knockout stage today View AGE OF ENERGY Sir Richard Branson - Age of Energy: The Green Economy Sir Richard Branson: We must put the planet before profit View CITIES AND SIGHTS Sydney, Australia The magic of Sydney and New South Wales View Back to top Hot Topics * Syria * Falkland Islands * Weather * The Queen's Diamond Jubilee * US Election 2012 * Six Nations * Make Britain Count * More... * News * Politics * World News * Obituaries * Travel * Health * Jobs * Sport * Football * Cricket * Fantasy Football * Culture * Motoring * Dating * Finance * Personal Finance * Economics * Markets * Fashion * Property * Crossword * Comment * Blogs * My Telegraph * Letters * Technology * Gardening * Telegraph Journalists * Contact Us * Privacy and Cookies * Advertising * A to Z * Tickets * Announcements * Reader Prints * * * Follow Us * Apps * Epaper * Expat * Promotions * Subscriber * Syndication © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012 Terms and Conditions Today's News Archive Style Book Weather Forecast http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html DCSIMG #RSS Feed for How about that? articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * UK * World * Politics * Obituaries * Education * Earth * Science * Defence * Health News * Royal Family * Celebrities * Weird News 1. Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? Papier mâché rhino escapes from zoo Pictures of the day Chewing gum art Chewing gum art The week in pictures The week in pictures Snowboarder rides down snowy street in Ankara, Turkey Snowboarding on Turkey's streets X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? Share: * * * * Tweet * * * Advertisement telegraphuk Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus Advertisement promotions » Loading Advertisement Follow The Telegraph on Social Media » IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http://www.facebook.co m/telegraph.co.uk&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=false&stream=f alse&header=false&height=62 Like Telegraph.co.uk on Facebook News Most Viewed * TODAY * PAST WEEK * PAST MONTH 1. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 2. CCTV police officer 'chased himself' after being mistaken for burglar 3. Cristina Kirchner says Britain 'militarising' South Atlantic 4. Mick Aston quits Time Team after producers hire former model co-presenter 5. Argentina to complain to UN over 'militarisation' of Falklands 1. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 2. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 3. Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? That’s for other people Free iPads for MPs, clothes allowances for newsreaders..where will gravy train stop for public sector workers, asks Max Davidson. Skinny: The look with endless legs Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? Advertisement Featured Advertising * Motoring * Culture * Gifts Loading MORE FROM TELEGRAPH.CO.UK MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 Revolutionise your business - win Microsoft Office 365 View FANTASY FOOTBALL Pick your free team for the Champions League knockout stage today View AGE OF ENERGY Sir Richard Branson - Age of Energy: The Green Economy Sir Richard Branson: We must put the planet before profit View CITIES AND SIGHTS Sydney, Australia The magic of Sydney and New South Wales View Back to top Hot Topics * Syria * Falkland Islands * Weather * The Queen's Diamond Jubilee * US Election 2012 * Six Nations * Make Britain Count * More... * News * Politics * World News * Obituaries * Travel * Health * Jobs * Sport * Football * Cricket * Fantasy Football * Culture * Motoring * Dating * Finance * Personal Finance * Economics * Markets * Fashion * Property * Crossword * Comment * Blogs * My Telegraph * Letters * Technology * Gardening * Telegraph Journalists * Contact Us * Privacy and Cookies * Advertising * A to Z * Tickets * Announcements * Reader Prints * * * Follow Us * Apps * Epaper * Expat * Promotions * Subscriber * Syndication © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012 Terms and Conditions Today's News Archive Style Book Weather Forecast http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html DCSIMG Dave Channels: Sky 111 | Virgin 128 | Freeview 19 | Also available in HD | Dave Ja Vu: Sky 158 | Virgin 191 * RSS * Register Join Dave So you're thinking about joining Dave are you? Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? Register now Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Login! *indicates mandatory field * The Dave Weekly Search Enter keywords ____________________ Search Advertisement Recent posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 24: Nick Helm, Journalists doing stand-up and not reading War and Peace * Listen to Episode 24: Tom Deacon, Toby Williams and piles of honesty * Listen to Episode 23: Welcome to Leicester with Abandoman * Listen to Episode 22: Alex Horne, The Frog and Bucket and Manchester, la, la, la * Listen to Episode 21: Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival Preview Show Browse by Author * Nick Gibbs Nick Gibbs * Donal Coonan Donal Coonan * Dara O'Briain Dara O'Briain * Marcus Brigstocke Marcus Brigstocke * Rufus Hound Rufus Hound * Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn * Chris Barrie Chris Barrie * Danny John-Jules Danny John-Jules Nick Gibbs The Dave Weekly podcast archive * February 2012 * January 2012 * September 2011 * August 2011 * December 2011 * November 2011 * October 2011 * Watch * GOLD * Dave * Alibi * Yesterday * Eden * Blighty * Really * Home * Good Food * TV Listings * UKTV Friends of Dave Here's some of our chums. 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We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What makes a joke a joke? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more Roget's Thesaurus. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * Catering Trucks For Rent * High Triglyceride Diet * How to Become a Nurse-Midwife * What Are The Best Used Car Sites? * Healthy Foods For Weight Loss Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Madonna Lady Gaga world tours MUSIC: Madonna v Lady Gaga rival concerts * Great White SHark SHARKS: How to avoid an attack, or survive one * [stephen-hester.jpg] HIGH PAY: Hester considered quitting over bonus row * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: Boorish, brutal, charismatic Ian Paisley * Syrian opposition flag TALKING POINT: Is Syria ready for change? * [abu-qatada-2.jpg] EXTREMISM: Abu Qatada's 7 hate preachings * [lana-del-rey_0.jpg] MUSIC: Lana Del Rey cancels tour, but UK loves her * Mars ocean SPACE: Evidence of ancient ocean on Mars Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 First Post Madonna Lady Gaga world tours Lady Gaga and Madonna vie for Queen of Pop title 2 One-Minute Read Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker: clash of the football pundits 3 One-Minute Read Alex Hall Jeremy Clarkson a bully says his 'Minnie Mouse' ex-wife 4 Video M.I.A at Super Bowl MIA shows middle finger during Super Bowl halftime show 5 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 6 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 7 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 8 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum Ha Ha, The River! 22 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 1 day ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 1 day ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 3 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 2 years ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. Jokes Warehouse Animal Jokes Blonde Jokes Doctor Jokes Drunk Jokes Lawyer Jokes Government Jokes jokes, joke of the day, joke MAILING LIST Enter your e-mail address, and click join! ____________________ Join jokes, joke of the day, joke Jokes Warehouse Jokes Joke of the Day Mail List Submit a Joke Message Board Cartoons Feedback Advertising Privacy Statement TELL A FRIEND Enter your name, e-mail address and a friend's e-mail address and click Send... Your name: ____________________ Your e-mail address: ____________________ Friends e-mail address: ____________________ Send Free Joke of the Day Script Joke Search Bookmark Us Shop at Amazon! Links Add Your Link Link To Us Webrings Submit a Joke Why not send us a joke? Just about all jokes sent will be uploaded to the website, and your joke might even end up as joke of the day sometime. Send us any joke you want to. 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Name: (Optional) ________________________________________ E-mail address: (Optional) ________________________________________ Name of Joke: ________________________________________ Joke: (Min 20, Max 3000 Characters) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Submit Reset #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Meta-joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,572,732,367 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Anti Joke Anti Joke logo « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3016 3017 Next » What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +12793 Spinner 193 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-worse-than-finding-a-worm-in-yo ur-apple----the-holocaust--2 &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook An Irishman walks out of a bar. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9447 Spinner 41 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fan-irishman-walks-out-of-a-bar &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why did the boy drop his ice cream? Because he was hit by a bus. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +9249 Spinner 43 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-did-the-boy-drop-his-ice-cream--b ecause-he-was-hit-by-a-bus &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock knock. Who's there? To. To who? To whom. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8559 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----to----to -who----to-whom &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Q: What is red and smells like blue paint? A: Red paint. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8494 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fq-what-is-red-and-smells-like-blue-pa int----a-red-paint &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have a gun. Get in the van. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7966 Spinner 81 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Froses-are-red--violets-are-blue--i-ha ve-a-gun--get-in-the-van &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook A dyslexic man walks into a bra. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7658 Spinner 54 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fa-dyslexic-man-walks-into-a-bra &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Whats green and has wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +7083 Spinner 26 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-green-and-has-wheels----grass-i -lied-about-the-wheels &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook How do you confuse a blond? Paint yourself green and throw forks at her. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +6232 Spinner 42 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fhow-do-you-confuse-a-blond----paint-y ourself-green-and-throw-forks-at-her &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook What's sad about 4 black people in a Cadillac going over a cliff? They were my friends. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5963 Spinner 30 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhats-sad-about-4-black-people-in-a-c adillac-going-over-a-cliff----they-were-my-friends &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Why was six afraid of seven? It wasn't. Numbers are not sentient and thus incapable of feeling fear. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5448 Spinner 29 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fwhy-was-six-afraid-of-seven----it-was nt-numbers-are-not-sentient-and-thus-incapable-of-feeling-fear &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Knock, Knock. Who's there? Dave. Dave who? Dave proceeds to break into tears as his grandmother's Alzheimers has progressed to the point where she can no longer remember him. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +5016 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fknock-knock----whos-there----dave---- dave-who----dave-proceeds-to-break-into-tears-as-his-grandmothers-a lzheimers-has-progressed-to-the-point-where-she-can-no-longer-remem ber-him &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3016 3017 Next » Anti Joke What are Antijokes? Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of comedy in which the uses is set up to expect a typical joke setup however the joke ends with such anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. The lack of punchline is the punchline. MOAR?? Want more? 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Ranker.com - List it. Rank it. Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 280120 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 280,120Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up any word, like bootylicious: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? That’s for other people Free iPads for MPs, clothes allowances for newsreaders..where will gravy train stop for public sector workers, asks Max Davidson. Skinny: The look with endless legs Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? Register now Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Login! *indicates mandatory field * The Dave Weekly Search Enter keywords ____________________ Search Advertisement Recent posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 24: Nick Helm, Journalists doing stand-up and not reading War and Peace * Listen to Episode 24: Tom Deacon, Toby Williams and piles of honesty * Listen to Episode 23: Welcome to Leicester with Abandoman * Listen to Episode 22: Alex Horne, The Frog and Bucket and Manchester, la, la, la * Listen to Episode 21: Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival Preview Show Browse by Author * Nick Gibbs Nick Gibbs * Donal Coonan Donal Coonan * Dara O'Briain Dara O'Briain * Marcus Brigstocke Marcus Brigstocke * Rufus Hound Rufus Hound * Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn * Chris Barrie Chris Barrie * Danny John-Jules Danny John-Jules Nick Gibbs The Dave Weekly podcast archive * February 2012 * January 2012 * September 2011 * August 2011 * December 2011 * November 2011 * October 2011 * Watch * GOLD * Dave * Alibi * Yesterday * Eden * Blighty * Really * Home * Good Food * TV Listings * UKTV Friends of Dave Here's some of our chums. 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We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is a joke? * What makes a joke a joke? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator * GPS Tracking Online * What Is Trex Decking? * Lower Back Pain Treatment Options * GPS Navigation Maps For Blackberry Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Madonna Lady Gaga world tours MUSIC: Madonna v Lady Gaga rival concerts * Great White SHark SHARKS: How to avoid an attack, or survive one * [stephen-hester.jpg] HIGH PAY: Hester considered quitting over bonus row * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: Boorish, brutal, charismatic Ian Paisley * Syrian opposition flag TALKING POINT: Is Syria ready for change? * [abu-qatada-2.jpg] EXTREMISM: Abu Qatada's 7 hate preachings * [lana-del-rey_0.jpg] MUSIC: Lana Del Rey cancels tour, but UK loves her * Mars ocean SPACE: Evidence of ancient ocean on Mars Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 First Post Madonna Lady Gaga world tours Lady Gaga and Madonna vie for Queen of Pop title 2 One-Minute Read Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker: clash of the football pundits 3 One-Minute Read Alex Hall Jeremy Clarkson a bully says his 'Minnie Mouse' ex-wife 4 Video M.I.A at Super Bowl MIA shows middle finger during Super Bowl halftime show 5 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 6 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 7 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 8 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum Ha Ha, The River! 34 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 1 day ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 1 day ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 3 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 2 years ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. 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Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,572,747,898 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 280142 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 280,142Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up any word: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? That’s for other people Free iPads for MPs, clothes allowances for newsreaders..where will gravy train stop for public sector workers, asks Max Davidson. Skinny: The look with endless legs Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? Register now Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Login! *indicates mandatory field * The Dave Weekly Search Enter keywords ____________________ Search Advertisement Recent posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 24: Nick Helm, Journalists doing stand-up and not reading War and Peace * Listen to Episode 24: Tom Deacon, Toby Williams and piles of honesty * Listen to Episode 23: Welcome to Leicester with Abandoman * Listen to Episode 22: Alex Horne, The Frog and Bucket and Manchester, la, la, la * Listen to Episode 21: Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival Preview Show Browse by Author * Nick Gibbs Nick Gibbs * Donal Coonan Donal Coonan * Dara O'Briain Dara O'Briain * Marcus Brigstocke Marcus Brigstocke * Rufus Hound Rufus Hound * Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn * Chris Barrie Chris Barrie * Danny John-Jules Danny John-Jules Nick Gibbs The Dave Weekly podcast archive * February 2012 * January 2012 * September 2011 * August 2011 * December 2011 * November 2011 * October 2011 * Watch * GOLD * Dave * Alibi * Yesterday * Eden * Blighty * Really * Home * Good Food * TV Listings * UKTV Friends of Dave Here's some of our chums. 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We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. To select your translation preferences click here. Related topics: antic gleek pliskie Related answers: [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] What is your view about joke-telling and practical jokes? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Do you say \'to do a joke\' or \'to make a joke\'? Read answer... [icon-relatedquestion-answered.gif] Any forester jokes or insult jokes? Read answer... Help us answer these: [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Is there a joke about Venus? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] What is the grossest joke? [icon-relatedquestion-UNanswered.gif] Who sings joke is on you? Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community: _______________________________________________________________________ Copyrights: American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 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Read more Related answers * Do people joke because they are a joke? * Why is a joke called joke? * What is jokes? * What is a joke? * What makes a joke a joke? » More Answer these * What is the joke in the joke that made ed's fortune? * How do you upload jokes to funny jokes by swisscodemonkeys? * What is a green-joke? » More Featured guides * How To Get A Paid Internship * How to Trade Stocks * Graduate Hair Stylist Jobs * Chain Door Locks * How To Choose A House To Lease Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Madonna Lady Gaga world tours MUSIC: Madonna v Lady Gaga rival concerts * Great White SHark SHARKS: How to avoid an attack, or survive one * [stephen-hester.jpg] HIGH PAY: Hester considered quitting over bonus row * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: Boorish, brutal, charismatic Ian Paisley * Syrian opposition flag TALKING POINT: Is Syria ready for change? * [abu-qatada-2.jpg] EXTREMISM: Abu Qatada's 7 hate preachings * [lana-del-rey_0.jpg] MUSIC: Lana Del Rey cancels tour, but UK loves her * Mars ocean SPACE: Evidence of ancient ocean on Mars Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 First Post Madonna Lady Gaga world tours Lady Gaga and Madonna vie for Queen of Pop title 2 One-Minute Read Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker: clash of the football pundits 3 One-Minute Read Alex Hall Jeremy Clarkson a bully says his 'Minnie Mouse' ex-wife 4 Video M.I.A at Super Bowl MIA shows middle finger during Super Bowl halftime show 5 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 6 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 7 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 8 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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Licensed by Felden. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. * Jobs * Media Information * Subscription Enquires * Books * Apps #this is not a joke. - Atom this is not a joke. - RSS IFRAME: http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=7197937166837298868&blogNa me=this+is+not+a+joke.&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=LIG HT&layoutType=LAYOUTS&searchRoot=http://seriouslythisisnotajoke.blogspo t.com/search&blogLocale=en_US&homepageUrl=http://seriouslythisisnotajok e.blogspot.com/&vt=-3615551194509589237 this is not a joke. but it is where I talk about all the movies I watch Friday, February 25, 2011 Since you've been gone... Thanks Toothpaste for Dinner! I must offer some profuse apologies. Or maybe not. I ran into Brunch Bird last weekend at, of all places, of course, the movies. (I was there to watch The Roommate. How was it you ask? Hysterically amazing!) She asked if I had a blog when I told her that I liked hers and I said "I do, but it sort of went defunct after watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." (Oh, and how was that you ask? Only the best movie I saw in 2010!) She said, "Well, it's never too late to start up again. I'd know." And she is right. And I have seen some really worthy movies. I don't think I am an extraordinary writer, or maybe even that good, but my friends seem to enjoy it. So, back to movies. Well, all of the Swedish Steig Larsson movies were high points in my movie watching year last year. But I never wrote about them. I don't know if I ever will, but hopefully. So what has been going on with me, you ask? Well, lets do a photo run down, shall we? According to my last post I stopped writing after I went to GA in March. Well, I went back in May. It was the epic Georgia trip. It will go down in the annals of the Georgia Trips. Well, until Lori and I go on our ten year anniversary road trip though Georgia. Epic Georgia Adventure. May 2010. Let's see. Then the World Cup happened, right? Well, I rooted for Germany, until they lost to Spain. That German support involved many hours at Lucky Bar and included me being interviewed at 7:30am on the CBS local news! Good thing my State Department colleagues knew I was drinking beer at 8am on a work day. Here is me and a bunch of other Germany fans after they beat Australia (? Australia, right?) German Victory. And lots of Beer. World Cup 2010. The World Cup era was also a celebration of new housing arrangements. I moved in May and therefore was able to acquire this little piece of toilet paper shredding heaven at the end of June. She is excellent. For the most part. Except she shreds all my toilet paper. Named after a 20th century Mexican Revolutionary, her name is Emiliano Zapata. July 2010. She's almost ten months old now (March 6) and is currently sitting in a reusable bag with a pair of my heels. Good work Zizzle. August was epic because not only did I audition for the Capitals Red Rocker squad (and did not make the cut) but I also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!! Good god, if you haven't been there book your plane ticket now. It is the most wonderful place on earth. Even better than Niagara Falls. And I bet you never thought you'd hear that come out of my mouth! The wonderful world of Disney. August 2010. We also spent time with our good friend Steven while there. He took us around Los Angeles. Mel and I were re-united with high school friends. We ate at Spago. Saw the Hollywood sign (though I think we actually looked to the right to see the Hollywood sign). Saw the jail where OJ was kept. Saw a Soviet submarine. Ate Jack in the Box and had an all around fantastic vacation!! Look to the left and I see the Hollywood sign. Everyone here is so famous. Including Craig Kilbourne. I told him he looked like my grad school advisor. HAH! August 2010 But the fun didn't stop in August. Oh no, no. September brought about three momentous events. 1. First UGA game day. We lost. Sad. Imagine us in Game Day dresses. September 2010. 2. American Idiot on Broadway with Billie Joe Armstrong. Of course, now he is in the show for a two month run, but at the time he was only doing 8 shows. And I saw one of them! St. Jimmy died today/ He blew his brains out into the bay. September 2010. 3. Another Virginia inspired beauty. This time for my left arm. You're looking at $300 of dogwood. September 2010. October was confusing. Zombies invaded Washington and I was there to document it. I almost got ejected from the National Mall by the Park Service because they didn't believe I was not a professional photographer. Why? It wasn't because they saw this post and were amazed at all my photos (I took all of them except the one of Billie Joe). No. It was because he took one look at my camera and thought it was too "professional." Dude, hate to break it to you, but I'm not the only person in the city with a DSLR. Durr. The Walking Dead invade Washington. October 2010. In November I did play professional photographer though. I took my friends' engagement photos. I loved it. Does anyone have anything they want me to photograph? My rates are reasonable! You can email photography.jdh@gmail.com if you're interested. I am available in DC but will travel. I'm not kidding. You'll be impressed when you see my work below. The real work. November 2010. December was pretty standard. Heartbreak. Presents. New Years Eve in Georgia. The Caps won the Winter Classic (in your face Pittsburgh!) and the year started off more miserable than I could possibly imagine. Work upheaval. Henious sinus infection. The complete opposite of Love, Valour, Compassion. So I really needed one weekend in January to go well. Luckily the weekend I spent in New York for Mel and Barry's birthday was excellent. If it hadn't been I don't think I'd be here to type this right now. I'd still be crying in a gutter. A new era of Hope. January 2011. This brings us, more or less, to the present day. I tried to buy a scratching post for the cat but the pet store was sold out. It was very tragic. (UPDATE: I have secured said scratching post. VICTORY!) But, this is neither a blog about my stupid cat nor a blog about my excellent photography skillz (though, seriously, email me if you want me to shoot something for you!), it is a blog about movies. So here, very very briefly, are my reviews of the movies I have seen since we last spoke (minus movies that weren't new to me--Dawn of the Dead, Interview with the Vampire, Titanic, Before Sunset, etc, etc, etc, etc.) And in no particular order... The movies: * All the Swedish Steig Larsson movies. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the best one of the three. I am so glad I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie was so shocking because I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the best movie I saw in 2010! The Girl Who Played with Fire-- Good. I think the book and the movie were actually pretty different. Again, I saw the movie first then read the book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--The book is waiting to be read on my shelf. P.S. sweet Mohawk! * 127 hours--very different then I thought it would be. I was actually surprisingly emotional. Go see it. Seriously. It is very good. Even though Danny Boyle annoys me. Though, I did enjoy 28 Days Later. A lot. * Black Swan--overrated I think. I didn't care about any of the characters and was in fact hoping bad things would happen to them. Plus, I want to punch Natalie Portman in the face. Seriously. I did like that Frenchy though. I hope it doesn't win all sort of Oscars. * Casino Jack--Erik and I wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing out. So he suggested this. It was fine. I was entertained. It was interesting to "learn" about Jack Abramoff. Plus, I like Kevin Spacey and I like drinking my pomegranate Italian sodas at E Street. * A Film Unfinished--I saw this after I got my tattoo. Another good thing about E Street is that you can order beer there. Which I did. To stop the arm throbbing. A Film Unfinished is the footage that was recorded to make a Nazi propaganda film. The film was somewhat interesting even though nothing Nazi related seems to shock me anymore. I guess that is what you get for being a history major. Nothing in it stuck with me to this day. Just watch The Pianist instead. * Easy A--Watched this with Lori on the last GA trip. It was entertaining. I like that Emma Stone. Her parents were ridiculously amusing and Dan from Gossip Girl was in it. What's not to like?? * Jackass 3D--I will confess, the only reason I watched this was because the boy I was crushing on worked on this movie. He was the stereoscopic supervisor. Basically, his job was to make it 3D. (You can figure out who he is on imdb) Otherwise, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I remember Jackass to be. I guess maybe I am getting too old for this? There was one though where a guy got his tooth pulled out. It made me feel like I was going to puke. So, maybe, mission accomplished? * The Roommate--This one was a pretty recent view and I will admit it, I saw it because I love horror movies and Leighton Meester. What of it? Christ Almighty this movie was bad. If we hadn't seen it at Chinatown and had the "interactive" movie experience (ever noticed the audience at Ctown can't shut the eff up? They talk to the screen. They think it is interactive) this would have been a total waste. But by the end the reaction from the audience with the action on the screen was so hilarious that we were all dying of laughter. I imagine this was not the desired effect when they made the film. * Up--I know. I know. How is it possible I haven't seen this yet? IDK. I watched it on Christmas, perfect movie for that day, right?! I loved it. I thought the animation was so excellent and the characters were so sweet. I was chastised though because I didn't cry at the beginning. I guess I have a stone where my heart should be? * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--I actually saw this movie twice! Once the day after Thanksgiving and once on Christmas. Don't you just love Harry Potter at holiday time? God, I do!! This is obviously the best HP yet. Why? Obviously because they split it in two so it can be closer to the story in the book. Love love love love love it. Can't wait till the end. * Blue Valentine--Ah yes, another E street wonder. What does it say about me, or maybe about that theatre, that anything I see there is more enjoyable than a movie anywhere else? And how do I remember that I had my pomegranate soda, resces pieces and a crab pretzel? They must pump some sort of hyper circulated air in, or something. Anyway. I liked this. It wasn't uplifting, but sometimes neither is life. Michelle Williams was way better than stupid Natalie Portman. SHE should win the Oscar. I also sort of realized I am in love with Ryan Gosling. I guess I should get in line. * Catfish--OH DAMN. Seriously. This was the other best movie of 2010. I want everyone to watch it. I wont say anything about it though, because I want you to experience it with fresh eyes. After Erik and I watched this we had to immediately go to another movie to cleanse the palate of this one. It was SO GOOD!!! * Devil--is the movie we saw after Catfish. What is with M.Night? Seriously. That guy can't make a good movie to save his life. Though. I did sort of like it. But it is really hard to tell if he is being serious or just thinks that he can make good previews and trick people into seeing his movies. * Inception--Yes, yes. A worthy Oscar contender. But lets be seriously. I love Leonardo DiCaprio. I would watch him read the phone book. I love him. Love, love, love. This was good. I liked it. I should watch it again. Oh Man... speaking of Inception and Up. Watch this. It is freaking HILARiOUS!!!!! Please watch it. Please. It is so good. * Let the Right One In--A Swedish vampire movie. I hear that the book is much better. Let's all just read the book, eh? * Dead Snow--Hahahahahaha. Yes. You know this movie. It has some of my favorite elements. Norway. Zombies. Nazis. Well, Nazis aren't my favorite, but they are historical. Yes, a somewhat historical zombie movie set in Norway. It was just as bad, or as good, as you expected. I watched this on Halloween. Totally viable. * Please Give--I watched this because I read something about it in Slate. The article was talking about this scene where the daughter wasn't a pair of jeans and how it was really sad and realistic. I don't know about that but I thought the movie was good. Entertaining. And the actors were quite good. And Amanda Peet was in it. Solved. * Saw 3D--Ok. Ok. This was just like Jackass 3D. Mel and I went to see this because her friend was in it. It was awful. Just awful. But we did see her high school friend get cut in half. Classic. * Waiting for Superman--I read something about this movie that said some of the scenes where the kids are waiting during the lotteries were actually fake. It was disappointing. I mean, I suppose what is more disappointing is that not everyone can go to school in one of the best counties in America, like I did. It is sad that people can't get quality education. I dunno that charter schools are the answer. I just wish people had more money so they could move to a good school district. * Survival of the Dead--This movie makes me sad. This is not George Romero quality. It was just atrocious. Just so, so, so so awful. * Rachel Getting Married--Here is the thing about this movie. It was actually pretty good. But towards the end Anne Hathaway has her hair highlighted and it was so hideous it was actually distracting. Like, I could not focus on the movie. Just ask Erik. He was there. Also, why was that family so weird? Maybe we will never know. * Midnight in the Garden of Good And Evil--Lori and I both read this book in preparation for our Georgia Road Trip 2011. It was an excellent book. Just excellent. It teaches you so much about Georgia history and prepares you to travel to Savannah. The narration was amazing. But Christ this movie was bad. Not even Kevin Spacey and Jude Law could fix it. Message to Hollywood: Just because a book is awesome doesn't mean it will translate well to film. Please consider why the book is good (narration and the character development) and make sure you can do that in the movie. Because they couldn't do it, it made the movie not good. We both fell asleep then had to return to watch it another day. Sad. * The Fighter--I just saw this last night. Yay for solo dates! This one was much better than Black Swan. Christian Bale should win an Oscar. Brother is scary good! I liked this one. I like that there is a character arc, and that I care what happens to them. And I am not sure, but were the sisters supposed to be funny, because hoo-boy. What was going on with them? Despite the fact it was a Thursday night and everyone in the theater was over 25 it was still interactive. Oh Chinatown. The television... * True Blood Seasons 1 and 2--Fuck I love this show. It is pretty unusual that I am interested in a show from the first episode, but I was with this one. Thanks to RaeJean to recommending it. I can't wait till I can watch Season 3. * Peep Show Seasons 1-7--God this show is hilarious. Peep Show is a BBC production about two friends, Mark and Jeremy (though my favorite character is Super Hanz...which I thought was Super Hands for a long time). It is sort of like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but set in England. I discovered the show one morning when I woke up from a night out at like 5 and I needed to wash my face and brush my teeth. I turned on the telly, which was on BBC because I was watching Law and Order: UK when I fell asleep and I was absolutely hooked! It is on BBC America Saturday mornings from 4-6am... for those times when you're just getting home from the bar or are too drunk to fall asleep. Or you can watch all the episodes on Hulu. You wont regret it. It is hysterical. * The IT Crowd Seasons 1-3--The only reason I watched this show was because it was available on Netflix view it now. The first season was really funny. The other two, not as much. It reminds me of the show within a show on Extras. What was it called? When the Whistle Blows? It has the same sort of odd BBC production values... almost like it is a fake show. * The Walking Dead--Remember when I said the Walking Dead invaded DC? Well, these were the dead from this show. God. What didn't I like about this show? It took place in Georgia. Had Zombies. Was made by AMC. And it was one of the first scary shows I have ever watched. Other than MTV's Fear (god I miss that show) I have never actually been scared during a show. The first three or so eps of this show just made me so nervous. I loved it. The DVD comes out around my birthday. Hint. Hint. * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1--To say Lori was mad when I liked True Blood would be the understatement of 2010. She was like, "those aren't real vampires. Watch Buffy. Otherwise I will hate you." So over NYE weekend we watched Season 1. I will tell you, the vampires in TB are so much sexier (ugh) than the ones in BtVS. Lori would say "They're not supposed to be sexy! They're supposed to be evil!! I hate you." So Season 1 was sort of ridiculous. The production quality was very low and the episodes were hysterical. But we made a drinking game out of it and now Season 2 is much much better. Ah, the things we do for love! Wow. That took many days to complete. That is the full disclosure. Hopefully now that I have gotten those out of the way I can go back to updating regularly. Coming soon... (or what I have been watching, or have ready to watch...) Glee: Season 1 (two discs left) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 (three episodes left) The Tudors: Season 4 (how did I not know this was out?! I will watch it once Glee is over) The Social Network (waiting at home to be watched Sunday) Mighty Ducks and D2 (purchased with an amazon card I won at work!) and thats all for now! Welcome back. See you at the movies. Or something. (E street. Not Chinatown) Posted by this is not a joke at 10:14 PM 6 comments Labels: AMC, awards season, book to film, British, documentary, E Street, foreign, Harry Potter, HBO, horror, indie, Norwegian, not movies, Oscars, Romero, Swedish, wwII, zombies Monday, April 26, 2010 Scream So what is this one about? If for some stupid, insane, inane reason, you don't know the plot of 1996's Scream, Netflix will tell you about it... Horror maven Wes Craven -- paying homage to teen horror classics such as Halloween and Prom Night -- turns the genre on its head with this tale of a murderer who terrorizes hapless high schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) by offing everyone she knows. Not your average slasher flick, Scream distinguishes itself with a self-parodying sense of humor. Courteney Cox and David Arquette co-star as a local news reporter and a small-town deputy. Amazing. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. I actually watched this while I was visiting my beloved in Georgia. The state not the country. She is also a netflix member, because she is amazing--as is netflix--and we watched this after a night of drinking on view it now. It was pretty much the greatest decision ever! And what did I think? Wow. When I first saw this movie I thought my head was going to explode. I watched it when I was in middle school and I'd never seen anything so amazingly brilliant in my entire life. I am not even being hyperbolic. It seriously blew my mind! It was so surprising with the way Wes Craven used typical horror movie convention and turned it completely on it's head!! The movie is so wonderfully quotable. So many amazing quotes. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting" and "Your mother was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something, but let's face it Sydney, your mother...was no Sharon Stone" and "Listen Kenny, I know you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say 'hurry,' please interpret that as 'move your fat, tub of lard ass NOW!'" It also has music that is so awesome and retro without being too much of a time warp. I listened to that soundtrack like a million times. It is hilarious to listen to a movie and be able to sing all the songs because I remember them from when I was 13. This movie may be one of the most responsible for my love of horror movies. I don't just love slasher movies, though, I love all horror movies. This may have been one of the first ones I'd really seen by the time I could sort of understand what I was thinking about anything. It was just so incredible!! So what is the rating? (out of 10) Scream is just so gd clever it makes me sick! The characterization was amazing, with using horror movie cliches. And it paints an amazing picture of what was going on in pop culture in 1996. It is amazing. It is 100% a 10. I need to buy this on dvd like a million years ago. I have it on vhs somewhere... Posted by this is not a joke at 8:13 PM 3 comments Labels: 10, 1990s, best, horror Ghost Town So what is this one about? Welp, my delightfully under-used friend Netlfix tells us, British funnyman Ricky Gervais ("The Office," "Extras") stars in his first feature film lead as Bertram Pincus, a hapless gent who's pronounced dead, only to be brought back to life with an unexpected gift: a newfound ability to see ghosts. When Bertram crosses paths with the recently departed Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), he gets pulled into Frank's desperate bid to break up his widowed wife's (Téa Leoni) pending marriage to another man. ok. And how much did I pay to watch? Nothing. One thing you might not know about me is I have recently (well, maybe not too recently, since the Olympics) started going 10 miles a day on Saturday and Sundays on the treadmill in my basement. For the most part this works well because I have recorded shows from the previous week that I can watch. At most, three episodes of Law and Order (and it's friends) and one episode of Gossip Girl. This seems to fit the time well. Unfortunately, the weekend I watched this I had nothing left to watch, so I used my HBO on demand and settled on this one. And since I don't pay for cable it really was nothing. And what did I think? Well, I am a big Ricky Gervais fan. I like his insane laugh. And his British accent. And his fat little face. He doesn't seem to have a lot of range to me, because I've never seen a role where he wasn't just playing Ricky Gervais. Luckily, though, I like him. So, it works well. As Bertram he was really playing himself. Grumpy old Ricky. There is something about him, though, that is so sincere, so his character arc was nice. He had a very nice chemistry with each other character in the movie, and you really wanted things to work out well for him. Interestingly enough, since it is a stupid idiotic romantic comedy, things had to fail then could be built back up. Romantic comedies are so flipping dumb. In life, when you like a boy (or a boy likes a girl) and you do something stupid to fuck it up, you often don't get a second chance. Romantic comedies give stupid people too much ammunition for them to think that everything will work out for them too. Romantic comedies are the devil. (except Love Actually, and does Clueless count?) I sound way more bitter than I am. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It was funny enough, but mostly, anything with Ricky Gervais will likely be enjoyable for me. I give it a 6. Posted by this is not a joke at 7:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, comedy, rom-com Sunday, April 25, 2010 Shutter Island So what is this one about? My beloved tells us, World War II soldier-turned-U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his own troubling visions and by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow co-star in director Martin Scorsese's plot twist-filled psychological thriller set on a Massachusetts island in 1954. Mmmmmm, Leonardo DiCaprio AND Max Von Sydow?!?! Sign me up!!! And how much did I pay to watch? Erm. Well, my mother and I went to go see this at Cinema Arts. I don't remember if she paid. I think she might have, and then I bought some snacks. mmmmmmm, Cinema Arts popcorn! So, i think I paid nothing. And what did I think? Well, the more I think about this movie the more I like it. Interestingly enough, when I first watched this I didn't really like it as much. It really wasn't what I expected from the ads. I wanted it to be much, much, much scarier. (Love me some scary movies!) But now that I think about the movie, and its "twist" I think it is very smart. I'd like to see it again to see if there were any clues to figuring it out while the plot was moving forward. And I love Leonardo DiCaprio and Max VonSydow. Yumm. So what is the rating? (out of 10) Like I said, the more I think about it, the more I like it. So I'll give it a 7. Or maybe an 8. Something like that. Posted by this is not a joke at 5:29 PM 0 comments Labels: 7, 8, Cinema Arts Sunday, March 21, 2010 The Pregnancy Pact So what is this one about? Ah ha! Lifetime (yes, that Lifetime. Television for Women) tells us about their movie, Inspired by a true story, the film explores the costs of teen pregnancy with a story of a fictional "pregnancy pact" set against the backdrop of actual news reports about teen pregnancy from June 2008. Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch), an online magazine journalist, returns to her hometown to investigate the sudden spike in teenage pregnancies at her old high school. Almost immediately, she comes up against Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis), the head of the local conservative values group and mother of Sara, a newly pregnant 15-year-old. Meanwhile, the school nurse (Camryn Manheim) tries to convince the school to provide contraception to students to address the pregnancy epidemic but is met with great opposition from the school and community. As the number of pregnant girls climbs to 18, a media firestorm erupts when Time Magazine reports that the rise in the number of pregnancies at the school is the result of a "pregnancy pact." As the mystery unfolds about whether or not "the pact" is real, Sidney soon realizes that all of the attention is disguising the much larger issues that are at the core of the story. Shazaam that is long. And how much did I pay to watch? Zero dollars. I watched it on Lifetime. On my tv. At home. Awesome. And what did I think? Oh lord. One thing you might not know about me is that I love me some Lifetime movies. I mean, how the shit can you not?! Think about the fabulous Kirsten Dunst as star Fifteen and Pregnant. Or, Too Young to be a Dad with Paul Dano. Or Student Seduction with Elizabeth Berkeley. Or Co-Ed Call Girl with Tori Spelling. Do I really need to go on?! No. I do not. Lifetime movies are awesome. Awesomely bad. Awesomely awesome. And man, they really hit the nail on the head for me. I love the whole teenage pregnancy focus on tv these days. Why? I don't know. It actually might be a little sick. Because while, when I watch 16 and Pregnant, often times these girls are stupid and unimpressive and I think they are dumb and sort of got what they deserve, I feel so incredibly bad for them. Because they are so unprepared and just sad. So, this movie was awesome in that it was showing the typical tv teenage reaction to getting pregnant--you know, going to parties and drinking, saying ridiculous things like "I have to spend time with my friends, I can't spend time with the baby all the time!" (actually, yes, you can. When you decided to have a baby that is essentially what you decided. It isn't your fault. You're just a stupid 16 year old), and being clueless as to the fact that the boy who got you pregnant is pretty much not going to stick around. But, through wise old, old, old Thora Birch it also showed that teenage pregnancy isn't all the fun and games you think. Do people really think it will be all fun and games? Be serious. So what is the rating? (out of 10) It is a hard movie to rate because all lifetime movies are pretty much awful. So, is it good because it is awful, or is it just awful? It certainly is not the best Lifetime movie I have seen, but lets be serious, if it is on some Sunday afternoon, I'm not gonna pretend like I am not going to watch it. And it isn't like I spend a few hours watching Lifetime movies today. Be serious. So, I'll give it a 6. Better than average, but not by much! Posted by this is not a joke at 8:53 PM 0 comments Labels: 6, lifetime movie, teenage, tv Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Andy: Do you know much about film? Dwight: I know everything about film. I've seen over two hundred forty of them. from the mind of... from the mind of... What I've Watched * ▼ 2011 (1) + ▼ February (1) o Since you've been gone... * ► 2010 (13) + ► April (3) o Scream o Ghost Town o Shutter Island + ► March (1) o The Pregnancy Pact + ► February (5) o F*#k You Sidney Crosby!! o Chapter 27 o Paranormal Activity o Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) o It's Complicated + ► January (4) o Up in the Air o 9/11 o Sunshine Cleaning o Top Ten Movies of the 2000s * ► 2009 (58) + ► December (6) o Invictus o Away We Go o Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind o The Haunting in Connecticut o Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire o An Education + ► November (6) o The Death of Alice Blue (Part of Spooky Movie-- Th... o The Broken o Gossip Girl: Season 2 o The Last Days of Disco o Troop Beverly Hills o Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Com... + ► October (5) o [REC] o Gossip Girl: Season 1 o Gigantic o Two Lovers o District 9 + ► September (3) o Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired o Very Young Girls o This is Not A Joke + ► August (9) o Degrassi Goes Hollywood o Orphan o Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist o (500) Days of Summer o Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince o The Hangover o Bruno o Drag Me to Hell o In & Out + ► July (2) o Play Misty for Me o Outbreak + ► June (1) o In Treatment: Season 1 + ► May (7) o Kissing Jessica Stein o Changeling o Crazy Love o Marley & Me + ► April (3) + ► March (3) + ► February (7) + ► January (6) * ► 2008 (69) + ► December (8) + ► November (8) + ► October (3) + ► September (4) + ► August (13) + ► July (16) + ► June (17) * ► 2007 (1) + ► August (1) Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! The Social Network Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Coming Soon!! Coming Soon!! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2 What else is in progress? Glee: Season 1, Part 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 What am I waiting to see? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US Version) True Blood: Season 3 The Way Back What is at the top of my queue? Breaking Bad: Season 1 Glee: Season 2 In Treatment: Season 2 What I do... when I'm not watching movies [EMBED] Powered by Podbean.com Listen to the Bob and Abe Show www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from julia d homstad. Make your own badge here. What am I watching on the tv? NEW Gossip Girl NEW Teen Mom 2 NEW Degrassi Washington Capitals Hockey Who is following me? What I ACTUALLY read... when I'm not watching So, my New Year's Resolution for 2011 was to read a book a month. Here is my progress... January The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Further Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour February A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe March Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith April Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. May Spook by Mary Roach June My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares July The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins August Elixir by Hilary Duff (Don't blame me! It was in the lending library at work!) Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin September Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins What I read... when I'm not watching movies * Videogum Ha Ha, The River! 34 minutes ago * What I Wore What I Wore: Bright Dahlia 1 day ago * District of Chic "Some say he isn’t machine washable, and all his potted plants are called Steve..." 1 day ago * Blogul lui Randy Pasiunea este inima vieții 2 days ago * PostSecret PostSecret "Live" Spring 2012 3 days ago * The Empire Never Ended Blitz - Nought as Queer as folk 4 days ago * Unsuck DC Metro "Everyone was Aware Money was Going Out the Door" 1 week ago * Go Joe Go Frites alors! (Taken with Instagram at Pommes Frites) 9 months ago * Baby Bird How Can I Type When The Baby Keeps Eating Fingers? 1 year ago * Capitulate Now 2 years ago * Fuck You, Penguin Don't even think about trying to sneak by me 2 years ago Want more movies?? * AMC (my theatre of choice) * Hulu * Internet Movie Database * Moviefone * Netflix (greatest invention of the 21st century) * Paste Magazine * Rotten Tomatoes * The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time! Who am I? My Photo this is not a joke I watch a lot of movies. I mean a lot A LOT. An insane amount honestly. Here I will tell you what I think about all those movies I watch... and you will be amazed. View my complete profile as an aside... Its funny, because like 99% of the time I feel like I want to disappear but it is 100% more depressing than I'd imagined. Picture Window template. Template images by i-bob. Powered by Blogger. 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Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (September 2007) Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes (also known as metahumor), and joke templates.^[citation needed] Contents * 1 Self-referential jokes * 2 Joke about jokes (metahumor) * 3 Joke template * 4 See also * 5 References [edit] Self-referential jokes This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which a familiar class of jokes is part of the joke. Examples of meta-jokes: * An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says, "What is this - some kind of joke?" * A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Saints preserve us! I'm in the wrong joke!" * A woman walked into a pub and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one. * An Irishman walks past a bar. * Three men walk into a bar... Ouch! (And variants:) + A dyslexic man walks into a bra. + Two men walk into a bar... you'd think one of them would have seen it. + Two men walk into a bar... the third one ducks. + A seal walks into a club. + Two men walk into a bar... but the third one is too short and walks right under it. + Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^[1] * W.S. Gilbert wrote one of the definitive "anti-limericks": There was an old man of St. Bees, Who was stung in the arm by a wasp; When they asked, "Does it hurt?" He replied, "No, it doesn't, But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet." ^[2]^[3] * Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur. * These non-limericks rely on the listener's familiarity with the limerick's general structure: There was a young man from Peru Whose limericks all stopped at line two * (may be followed with) There was an old maid from Verdun * (and even with an explanation that the narrator knows an unrecitable limerick about Emperor Nero) * Why did the elephant cross the road? Because the chicken retired. * Two drums and a cymbal roll down a hill. (Cue drum sting) * A self-referential knock-knock joke: A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: The Interrupting Cow. B: The Interrupt-- A: MOOOOOOOO!! * A self-referential meta-joke: I've never meta-joke I didn't like. Why did the chicken cross the road? To have his motives questioned. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did [edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor) Metahumor as humor about humor. Here meta is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet), or metafiction. Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[4] I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes. E.B. White has joked about humor, saying that "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."^[5] Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg used metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that joke was funnier than you acted."^[6] These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Similarly, Jon Stewart, hosting his own television program, often wrings his tie and grimaces following an uncomfortable clip or jab. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience. In the U.S. version of the British mockumentary The Office, many jokes are founded on making fun of poor jokes. Examples include Dwight Schrute butchering the Aristocrats joke, or Michael Scott awkwardly writing in a fellow employee's card an offensive joke, and then attempting to cover it with more unbearable bad jokes. Limerick jokesters often^[citation needed] rely on this limerick that can be told in polite company: "A limerick packs jokes anatomical/ Into space that is quite economical./ But good ones, it seems,/ So seldom are clean,/ And the clean ones so seldom are comical." [edit] Joke template This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humour.^[7] "Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting stupid." "Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey:^[1] "How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?" "A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question." There once was an X from place B, Who satisfied predicate P, The X did thing A, In a specified way, Resulting in circumstance C. The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser summarised Jewish logic as "If P, so why not Q?" [edit] See also * Self-reference * Meta * Meta-reference * Fourth wall * Snowclone [edit] References 1. ^ ^a ^b Bill Bailey, "Bill Bailey Live - Part Troll", DVD Universal Pictures UK (2004) ASIN B0002SDY1M 2. ^ Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii. 3. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA683 4. ^ Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1, 2005) ISBN 0299213501, p. 3. 5. ^ "Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) 6. ^ Mitch Hedberg, "Mitch Hedberg - Mitch All Together", CD Comedy Central (2003) ASIN B000X71NKQ 7. ^ "Stars turn to jokers for hire"^[dead link] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta-joke&oldid=473432335" Categories: * Jokes Hidden categories: * All articles with dead external links * Articles with dead external links from October 2010 * Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 * All articles that may contain original research * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 * Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Latina * Nederlands * Svenska * This page was last modified on 27 January 2012 at 00:44. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #publisher The Free Dictionary Printer Friendly Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 3,572,756,785 visitors served. forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google ( ) Bing joke______________________________________________ Search? (*) Word / Article ( ) Starts with ( ) Ends with ( ) Text Dictionary/ thesaurus Medical dictionary Legal dictionary Financial dictionary Acronyms Idioms Encyclopedia Wikipedia encyclopedia ? joke Also found in: Legal, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec. Advertisement (Bad banner? Please let us know) joke  (j [omacr.gif] k) n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v. joked, jok·ing, jokes v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. __________________________________________________________________ [Latin iocus; see yek- in Indo-European roots.] __________________________________________________________________ jok [prime.gif] ing·ly adv. Synonyms: joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] n 1. a humorous anecdote 2. something that is said or done for fun; prank 3. a ridiculous or humorous circumstance 4. a person or thing inspiring ridicule or amusement; butt 5. a matter to be joked about or ignored joking apart seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking no joke something very serious vb 1. (intr) to tell jokes 2. (intr) to speak or act facetiously or in fun 3. to make fun of (someone); tease; kid [from Latin jocus a jest] jokingly adv __________________________________________________________________ joke - Latin jocus, "jest, joke," gave us joke. See also related terms for jest. ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Noun 1. joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter joke - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" gag, jape, jest, laugh humor, wit, witticism, wittiness, humour - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter gag line, punch line, tag line, laugh line - the point of a joke or humorous story howler, sidesplitter, thigh-slapper, wow, belly laugh, riot, scream - a joke that seems extremely funny blue joke, blue story, dirty joke, dirty story - an indelicate joke ethnic joke - a joke at the expense of some ethnic group funny, funny remark, funny story, good story - an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line); "she told a funny story"; "she made a funny" in-joke - a joke that is appreciated only by members of some particular group of people one-liner - a one-line joke shaggy dog story - a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness sick joke - a joke in bad taste sight gag, visual joke - a joke whose effect is achieved by visual means rather than by speech (as in a movie) 2. joke - activity characterized by good humor jest, jocularity diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" drollery, waggery - a quaint and amusing jest leg-pull, leg-pulling - as a joke: trying to make somebody believe something that is not true pleasantry - an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries" 3. joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement joke - a ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement antic, prank, put-on, trick, caper diversion, recreation - an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates; "scuba diving is provided as a diversion for tourists"; "for recreation he wrote poetry and solved crossword puzzles"; "drug abuse is often regarded as a form of recreation" dirty trick - an unkind or aggressive trick practical joke - a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish) 4. joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke" puniness, slightness, triviality, pettiness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous Verb 1. joke - tell a joke; speak humorously; "He often jokes even when he appears serious" jest communicate, intercommunicate - transmit thoughts or feelings; "He communicated his anxieties to the psychiatrist" quip, gag - make jokes or quips; "The students were gagging during dinner" fool around, horse around, arse around, fool - indulge in horseplay; "Enough horsing around--let's get back to work!"; "The bored children were fooling about" pun - make a play on words; "Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning" 2. joke - act in a funny or teasing way jest behave, act, do - behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself; "You should act like an adult"; "Don't behave like a fool"; "What makes her do this way?"; "The dog acts ferocious, but he is really afraid of people" antic, clown, clown around - act as or like a clown __________________________________________________________________ joke noun 1. jest, gag (informal), wisecrack (informal), witticism, crack (informal), sally, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), pun, quirk, one-liner (informal), jape No one told worse jokes than Claus. 2. jest, laugh, fun, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), lark, sport, frolic, whimsy, jape It was probably just a joke to them, but it wasn't funny to me. 3. farce, nonsense, parody, sham, mockery, absurdity, travesty, ridiculousness The police investigation was a joke. A total cover-up. 4. prank, trick, practical joke, lark (informal), caper, frolic, escapade, antic, jape I thought she was playing a joke on me at first but she wasn't. 5. laughing stock, butt, clown, buffoon, simpleton That man is just a complete joke. verb jest, kid (informal), fool, mock, wind up (Brit. slang), tease, ridicule, taunt, quip, josh (slang, chiefly U.S. & Canad.), banter, deride, frolic, chaff, gambol, play the fool, play a trick Don't get defensive, Charlie. I was only joking. Proverbs "Many a true word is spoken in jest" Translations joke [dʒəʊk] A. N (= witticism, story) → chiste m; (= practical joke) → broma f; (= hoax) → broma f; (= person) → hazmerreÃr m what sort of a joke is this? → ¿qué clase de broma es ésta? the joke is that → lo gracioso es que ... to take sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma to treat sth as a joke → tomar algo a broma it's (gone) beyond a joke (Brit) → esto no tiene nada de gracioso to crack a joke → hacer un chiste to crack jokes with sb → contarse chistes con algn they spent an evening cracking jokes together → pasaron una tarde contándose chistes for a joke → en broma one can have a joke with her → tiene mucho sentido del humor is that your idea of a joke? → ¿es que eso tiene gracia? he will have his little joke → siempre está con sus bromas to make a joke → hacer un chiste (about sth sobre algo) he made a joke of the disaster → se tomó el desastre a risa it's no joke → no tiene nada de divertido it's no joke having to go out in this weather → no tiene nada de divertido salir con este tiempo the joke is on you → la broma la pagas tú to play a joke on sb → gastar una broma a algn I don't see the joke → no le veo la gracia he's a standing joke → es un pobre hombre it's a standing joke here → aquà eso siempre provoca risa I can take a joke → tengo mucha correa or mucho aguante he can't take a joke → no le gusta que le tomen el pelo to tell a joke → contar un chiste (about sth sobre algo) why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → ¿eres incapaz de tomar nada en serio? what a joke! (iro) → ¡qué gracia!(iro) B. VI (= make jokes) → contar chistes, hacer chistes; (= be frivolous) → bromear to joke about sth (= make jokes about) → contar chistes sobre algo; (= make light of) → tomarse algo a risa I was only joking → lo dije en broma, no iba en serio I'm not joking → hablo en serio you're joking!; you must be joking! → ¡no lo dices en serio! C. CPD joke book N → libro m de chistes __________________________________________________________________ joke [ˈdʒəʊk] n (verbal) → plaisanterie f to tell a joke → raconter une plaisanterie it's no joke (= no fun) → ce n'est pas drôle to go beyond a joke (British) → dépasser les bornes to make a joke of sth → tourner qch à la plaisanterie (also practical joke) → farce f to play a joke on sb → jouer un tour à qn, faire une farce à (ridiculous) to be a joke → être une fumisterie The decision was a joke → La décision était une fumisterie. vi → plaisanter I'm only joking → Je plaisante. to joke about sth → plaisanter à propos de qch you must be joking!, you've got to be joking! → vous voulez rire! __________________________________________________________________ joke n → Witz m; (= hoax) → Scherz m; (= prank) → Streich m; (inf) (= pathetic person or thing) → Witz m; (= laughing stock) → Gespött nt, → Gelächter nt; for a joke → zum SpaÃ, zum or aus Jux (inf); I donât see the joke → ich möchte wissen, was daran so lustig ist or sein soll; he treats the school rules as a big joke → für ihn sind die Schulregeln ein Witz; he can/canât take a joke → er versteht SpaÃ/keinen SpaÃ; what a joke! → zum Totlachen! (inf), → zum SchieÃen! (inf); itâs no joke → das ist nicht witzig; the joke is that ⦠→ das Witzige or Lustige daran ist, dass â¦; itâs beyond a joke (Brit) → das ist kein Spaà or Witz mehr, das ist nicht mehr lustig; this is getting beyond a joke (Brit) → das geht (langsam) zu weit; the joke was on me → der Spaà ging auf meine Kosten; why do you have to turn everything into a joke? → warum müssen Sie über alles Ihre Witze machen?, warum müssen Sie alles ins Lächerliche ziehen?; Iâm not in the mood for jokes → ich bin nicht zu(m) Scherzen aufgelegt; to play a joke on somebody → jdm einen Streich spielen; to make a joke of something → Witze über etw (acc) → machen; to make jokes about somebody/something → sich über jdn/etw lustig machen, über jdn/etw Witze machen or reiÃen (inf) vi → Witze machen, scherzen (geh) (→ about über +acc); (= pull sbâs leg) → Spaà machen; Iâm not joking → ich meine das ernst; you must be joking! → das ist ja wohl nicht Ihr Ernst, das soll wohl ein Witz sein; youâre joking! → mach keine Sachen (inf) → or Witze!; â¦, he joked → â¦, sagte er scherzhaft __________________________________________________________________ joke [dʒəʊk] 1. n (verbal) → battuta; (practical joke) → scherzo; (funny story) → barzelletta to tell a joke → raccontare una barzelletta to make a joke about sth → fare una battuta su qc for a joke → per scherzo what a joke! (iro) → bello scherzo! it's no joke → non è uno scherzo the joke is that ... → la cosa buffa è che... the joke is on you → chi ci perde, comunque, sei tu it's (gone) beyond a joke → lo scherzo sta diventando pesante to play a joke on sb → fare uno scherzo a qn I don't see the joke → non capisco cosa ci sia da ridere he can't take a joke → non sa stare allo scherzo 2. vi → scherzare I was only joking → stavo solo scherzando you're or you must be joking! → stai scherzando!, scherzi! __________________________________________________________________ joke n joke [dÊÉuk] 1 anything said or done to cause laughter He told/made the old joke about the elephant in the refrigerator; He dressed up as a ghost for a joke; He played a joke on us and dressed up as a ghost. grappies, speletjies ÙÙزÙØÙÙØ ÙÙÙÙÙÙب Ñега vtip, žert vittighed der Witz αÏÏείο, ανÎκδοÏο, ÏάÏÏα chiste nali Ø´ÙØ®ÛØ Ø¬ÙÚ© vitsi blague ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤à¥à¤à¤à¥à¤²à¤¾ Å¡ala tréfa lelucon brandari barzelletta åè« ëë´ juokas, pokÅ¡tas joks jenaka; gurauan grap vits, spøk, fleip kawaÅ, żart partida glumÄ Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ; ÑÑÑка vtip Å¡ala Å¡ala skämt, vits, skoj à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka ç¬è©± жаÑÑ ÛÙØ³Û Ú©Û Ø¨Ø§Øª lá»i nói Äùa ç¬è¯ 2 something that causes laughter or amusement The children thought it a huge joke when the cat stole the fish. grap, snaaksheid ÙÙÙÙتÙÙ ÑмеÑка legrace morsomhed der Streich αÏÏείο, κÏ. ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÏοκαλεί γÎλιο gracia nali Ø´ÙØ®Û hupijuttu tour ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤, पहरिहास doskoÄica móka lelucon spaug, brandari cosa ridicola ç¬ããã ì기ë ê² juokingas dalykas joks kelakar grap spøk, vittighet kawaÅ piada renghi ÑмеÑной ÑлÑÑай zábava Å¡ala Å¡tos lustighet, spratt สิà¹à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ komik olay, gülünç bir Åey ç¬æ ÑмÑÑ; Ð°Ð½ÐµÐºÐ´Ð¾Ñ ÙØ·ÛÙÛ trò Äùa ç¬æ v 1 to make a joke or jokes They joked about my mistake for a long time afterwards. 'n grap maak of vertel ÙÙÙÙزÙØ ÑегÑвам Ñе dÄlat si legraci (z) gøre grin med necken ÎºÎ¬Î½Ï Î±ÏÏεία contar chistes teravmeelitsema Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯ÙØ Ø¬ÙÚ© Ú¯Ùت٠vitsailla plaisanter, (se) moquer (de) ×Ö°×ִת×Ö¼Ö·×Öµ× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál bergurau segja brandara, grÃnast með scherzare åè«ãã¨ã°ã ëë´íë¤ juokauti, juoktis jokot berjenaka grappen maken spøke, slÃ¥ vitser żartowaÄ brincar a glumi; a râde de подÑÑÑиваÑÑ robiÅ¥ si (z koho) žarty Å¡aliti se zbijati Å¡ale skämta, skoja à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka yapmak éç©ç¬ дÑажниÑи Ùزا٠بÙاÙا giá»u cợt å¼ç©ç¬ 2 to talk playfully and not seriously Don't be upset by what he said â he was only joking. skerts, kwinkslag ÙÙÙÙزÙØ Ð¼Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ°Ð¿Ñ Ñе žertovat lave sjov spaÃen αÏÏειεÏομαι (ÏÏη ÏÏζήÏηÏη) bromear nalja tegema ب٠شÙØ®Û Ú¯ÙتÙØ Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú©Ø±Ø¯Ù pilailla plaisanter ×ִצ××ֹק à¤à¤à¤à¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¾ सॠनहà¥à¤ यà¥à¤à¤¹à¥ à¤à¥à¤²à¤¨à¤¾ Å¡aliti se tréfál, mókázik bergurau gera að gamni sÃnu scherzare åè«ã§è¨ã ì¥ëì¼ì ë§íë¤ juokauti jokot bergurau grappen maken erte, spøke (med) żartowaÄ brincar a glumi ÑÑÑиÑÑ Å¾artovaÅ¥ Å¡aliti se govoriti u Å¡ali skämtare à¸à¸¹à¸à¹à¸¥à¹à¸ takılmak, Åaka olsun diye söylemek 說ç¬éç©ç¬ жаÑÑÑваÑи ÛÙØ³Û Ùزا٠کرÙا nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬ n joker 1 in a pack of playing-cards, an extra card (usually having a picture of a jester) used in some games. joker جÙÙÙر ÙÙ ÙÙرÙ٠اÙÙعب Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker der Joker μÏαλανÏÎÏ comodÃn jokker ÚÙکر jokeri joker ×'×ֹקֶר à¤à¤ªà¤¹à¤¾à¤¸à¤ joker (karte) dzsóker kartu joker jóker matta, jolly ã¸ã§ã¼ã«ã¼ (ì¹´ëëì´ìì) 조커 džiokeris džokers (kÄrÅ¡u spÄlÄ) joker joker joker dżoker diabrete joker Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ Å¾olÃk joker džoker joker à¹à¸à¹à¹à¸à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸à¸£à¹; à¹à¸à¹à¸à¸´à¹à¸¨à¸© joker (ç´ç)ç¾æ, çæ²åç)鬼ç(ç´ç)ç¾æ, çç Ð´Ð¶Ð¾ÐºÐµÑ ØªØ§Ø´ کا غÙا٠quân há» ï¼çº¸çï¼ç¾æ, çç 2 a person who enjoys telling jokes, playing tricks etc. grapjas, nar, grapmaker, skertser; asjas, speelman ÙÙزÙØ§Ø ÑÐµÐ³Ð°Ð´Ð¶Ð¸Ñ Å¡prýmaÅ spøgefugl der SpaÃvogel καλαμÏοÏÏÏÎ¶Î®Ï bromista naljahammas آد٠شÙØ® leikinlaskija blagueur/-euse ×Ö·××Ö¸×, ×Öµ××¦Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤à¤¿à¤¯à¤¾ वà¥à¤¯à¤à¥à¤¤à¤¿ Å¡aljivdžija mókás ember pelawak spaugfugl burlone åè«ãè¨ã人 ìµì´ê¾¼ juokdarys, pokÅ¡tininkas jokdaris; zobgalis pelawak grappenmaker spøkefugl kawalarz birncalhão glumeÅ£; farsor ÑÑÑник figliar Å¡aljivec zabavljaÄ skämtare à¸à¸±à¸§à¸à¸¥à¸ Åakacı kimse æéç©ç¬ç人 жаÑÑÑвник, наÑмÑÑник Ùسخرا آدÙÛ ngÆ°á»i thÃch Äùa ç±å¼ç©ç¬ç人 adv jokingly He looked out at the rain and jokingly suggested a walk. skertsend, grappenderwys, spottend, speel-speel, vir die grap بÙÙØ²Ø§Ø ÑеговиÑо žertem for sjov zum Spaà ÏÏ' αÏÏεία en broma naljaviluks ب٠شÙØ®Û piloillaan en plaisantant ×ִּצ××ֹק मà¤à¤¾à¤ मà¥à¤ u Å¡ali tréfásan dengan bergurau á gamansaman hátt scherzosamente åè«ã« ëë´ì¼ë¡ juokais jokojoties; pa jokam secara bergurau voor de grap for spøk, spøkende żartobliwie por graça în glumÄ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ Å¾artom v Å¡ali u Å¡ali det är [] inget att skämta om à¸à¸¢à¹à¸²à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸ Åakayla, Åakadan éç©ç¬å° жаÑÑома Ùزا٠ÙÛÚº Äùa bỡn å¼ç©ç¬å° it's no joke it is a serious or worrying matter It's no joke when water gets into the petrol tank. dit is geen grap nie, dit is niks om oor te lag nie, dit is nie iets om oor te lag nie اÙØ£ÙÙر٠جدÙÙ ÙØ®ÙØ·ÙØ±Ø ÙÙس ÙÙزÙØÙ٠не е Ñега to nenà legrace ingen spøg es ist nicht spaÃig δεν είναι καθÏÎ»Î¿Ï Î±ÏÏείο, είναι ÏοβαÏÏ Î¸Îμα no tiene gracia asi on naljast kaugel ÙÙضÙع ÙÙÙÛ Ø¨Ùد٠siitä on leikki kaukana ce n'est pas drôle ×Ö¶× ×× ×¦Ö°××ֹק यह à¤à¥à¤ à¤à¥à¤² नहà¥à¤ ozbiljno nem tréfa serius það er ekkert gamanmál (c'è poco da scherzare), (è una cosa seria) åè«ã©ãããããªã ìì ì¼ì´ ìëë¤ ne juokai tas nav nekÄds joks bukan main-main het is geen grapje det er ingen spøk nie ma żartów é um caso sério nu-i de glumit дело ÑеÑÑÑзное to nie je žart to pa ni Å¡ala nije Å¡ala det är [] inget att skämta om à¹à¸¡à¹à¸à¸¥à¸ ciddî, Åaka deÄil ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©çä¸æ¯éç©ç¬çäº Ñе не жаÑÑи سÙجÛØ¯Û Ø¨Ø§Øª ÛÛ không Äùa ä¸æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çäº joking apart/aside let us stop joking and talk seriously I feel like going to Timbuctoo for the weekend â but, joking apart, I do need a rest! alle grappies/gekheid op 'n stokkie, sonder speletjies, in erns ÙÙÙÙضÙع٠اÙÙØ²Ø§Ø Ø¬Ø§Ùبا ÑегаÑа наÑÑÑана žerty stranou spøg til side Spaà beiseite για να αÏήÏοÏμε Ïα αÏÏεία bromas aparte nali naljaks, aga از Ø´ÙØ®Û Ú¯Ø°Ø´ØªÙ leikki sikseen blague à part צְ××ֹק ×ַּצָ×, ×ִּרצִ×× ×ּת मà¤à¤¾à¤ सॠà¤à¤¤à¤° Å¡alu na stranu tréfán kÃvül secara serius að öllu gamni slepptu scherzi a parte åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã ëë´ì ê·¸ë§ëê³ juokai juokais, bet; užtenka juokų bez jokiem sesuatu yang kelakar in alle ernst spøk til side żarty żartami fora de brincadeira ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ Å¾arty nabok Å¡alo na stran zaista skämt Ã¥sido à¹à¸à¸£à¸µà¸¢à¸à¸à¸¢à¸¹à¹à¸à¸±à¹à¸§à¸à¸à¸° Åaka bir yana è¨æ¸æ£å³ Ð³Ð¾Ð´Ñ Ð¶Ð°ÑÑÑваÑи; без жаÑÑÑв سÙجÛØ¯Ú¯Û Ø³Û Ø¨Ø§Øª کرÛÚº nói nghiêm túc è¨å½æ£ä¼ take a joke to be able to accept or laugh at a joke played on oneself The trouble with him is that he can't take a joke. grap vat ÙÙÙÙبÙ٠اÙÙÙÙÙÙتÙ٠ноÑÑ Ð½Ð° майÑап rozumÄt legraci tage en spøg Spaà verstehen ÏαίÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏ Î±ÏÏεία tener sentido del humor nalja mõistma جÙب٠شÙØ®Û Ù Ø¬ÙÚ© را داشت٠٠خÙدÛد٠osata nauraa itselleen entendre à rire ×ְקַ×Ö¼Öµ× ×Ö¼Ö°×Ö´××Ö¸× à¤®à¤à¤¾à¤ बरदाशà¥à¤¤ à¤à¤°à¤¨à¤¾ prihvatiti Å¡alu érti a tréfát lapang dada, tahan menghadapi senda gurau taka grÃni stare allo scherzo ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ã ë림ì ë¹í´ë íë´ì§ ìë¤ suprasti juokÄ saprast joku dibawa bergurau tegen een grapje kunnen forstÃ¥ en spøk, tÃ¥le en vits znaÄ siÄ na żartach ter sentido de humor a avea simÅ£ul umoÂrului пÑавилÑно воÑпÑинимаÑÑ ÑÑÑки poznaÅ¥ žarty razumeti Å¡alo na svoj raÄun prihvatiti Å¡alu tÃ¥la (förstÃ¥) skämt รัà¸à¸¡à¸¸à¸ Åaka kaldırmak, Åakaya gelmek ç¶å¾èµ·éç©ç¬ ÑозÑмÑÑи жаÑÑи Ùزا٠برداشت کرÙا biết Äùa ç»å¾èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ __________________________________________________________________ joke → ÙÙتة, ÙÙØ²Ø vtip, vtipkovat fortælle vittigheder, vittighed scherzen, Witz αÏÏειεÏομαι, αÏÏείο broma, bromear vitsailla, vitsi blague, blaguer Å¡aliti se, vic scherzare, scherzo åè«, åè«ãè¨ã ëë´, ëë´íë¤ grapje, grappen maken spøk, spøke żart, zażartowaÄ brincar, piada ÑÑÑиÑÑ, ÑÑÑка skämt, skämta à¹à¸£à¸·à¹à¸à¸à¸à¸¥à¸, à¸à¸¹à¸à¸à¸¥à¸ Åaka, Åaka yapmak lá»i nói Äùa, nói Äùa å¼ç©ç¬, ç¬è¯ How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. ?Page tools Printer friendly Cite / link Feedback Add definition Mentioned in ? References in classic literature ? Dictionary browser ? Full browser ? April fool belly laugh blue joke blue story dirty joke dirty story ethnic joke gag in-joke jape jest joking laugh leg-pull no joking matter one-liner play a joke on practical joke punch line "I beg your pardon," said Tip, rather provoked, for he felt a warm interest in both the Saw-Horse and his man Jack; "but permit me to say that your joke is a poor one, and as old as it is poor. The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum, L. Frank View in context He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on whose head they grew. Fables by Aesop View in context And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, 'You might make a joke on that--something about "horse" and "hoarse," you know. Through the Looking Glass by Carroll, Lewis View in context Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System joint zone (air, land, or sea) Joint-fir joint-stock company jointed jointed charlock jointed rush jointer jointer plane Jointing Jointing machine jointing plane Jointing rule Jointless jointly jointress jointure Jointureless Jointuress Jointweed jointworm Joinvile Joinville joist jojoba joke joker jokester jokey jokily joking jokingly Jokjakarta joky jol Jole jolie laide Joliet Jolif Joliot Joliot-Curie Joliot-Curie Irene Jolliet jollification jollify Jollily Jolliment jolliness jollities jollity jollop JOIT Joizee Joizee Joizee Joizee JOJ JOJG Jojo Jojo Jojo (disambiguation) jojoba jojoba jojoba jojoba Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil Jojoba oil jojobas jojobas jojobas jojobas JOK Jókai Jokai, Mor Jókai, Mór Jokasta Jokasta Jokasta JOKB joke joke about Joke Analysis and Production Engine Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl Joke Girl joke is on Joke Of The Day Joke's on You Joke, Ethnic - Denomination - Race Joke, Practical joked joked joked joker joker joker joker joker Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker (disambiguation) Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker Periosteal Elevator Joker, the Jokers Jokers Jokers Jokers of the Scene Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Translations (*) TheFreeDictionary ( ) Google __________________________________________________ Search? 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This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. #RSS Feed for TV and Radio articles - Telegraph.co.uk DCSIMG Accessibility links * Skip to article * Skip to navigation [telegraph_print_190.gif] Advertisement Wednesday 08 February 2012 | Subscribe Telegraph.co.uk ___________________ Submit * Home * News * Sport * Finance * Comment * Blogs * Culture * Travel * Lifestyle * Fashion * Tech * Dating * Offers * Jobs * Film * Music * Art * Books * TV and Radio * Theatre * Hay Festival * Dance * Opera * Photography * Comedy * Pictures * Video * TV Guide * Clive James * Gillian Reynolds * BBC * Downton Abbey * Doctor Who * X Factor * Strictly Come Dancing * Telegraph TV 1. Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke Channel Four could be found to have breached broadcasting rules over an obscene joke made on one of its shows by David Walliams, the comedian. Channel Four criticised over David Walliams's 'disgusting' joke David Walliams(left) and One Direction's Harry Styles Photo: Getty Images/PA Jonathan Wynne Jones By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent 7:45AM GMT 06 Nov 2011 Comments Comments Appearing on Chris Moyles' Quiz Night, the Little Britain star told the Radio 1 DJ that he would like to perform a sexual act on a teenage member of the boy band One Direction. Ofcom, the media watchdog, is now assessing whether the show broke strict rules governing the use of offensive language amid growing concerns about declining standards on television. The watchdog and Channel Four have both received complaints, and campaigners described the lewd joke made by the children's' author as "disgusting" and "appalling". They argued it was as distasteful as the phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to Andrew Sachs in 2008, claiming that Brand had sex with the Fawlty Towers actor's granddaughter. Agreeing with Moyles that Harry Styles was his favourite member of One Direction, Walliams talked fondly about the singer's hair on the show, which was watched by 1.1 million viewers. Related Articles * Libby Purves: what happened to innuendo? 06 Nov 2011 * 'I was ambitious. Now I’m like JR Hartley’ 07 Nov 2011 * Andrea Bocelli: the truth about Silvio 14 Nov 2011 * Jonathan Ross apologises for prank calls to Sachs 29 Oct 2008 * BBC in row over controversial joke 06 Jun 2011 * Channel 4 criticised for new reality 'freak show' 22 Aug 2010 The 40-year-old comedian, who is married to the model Lara Stone and has published four books for children, including The Boy in the Dress and Gangsta Granny, then said: "I'd like to suck his ****." The show was aired at 10pm, only an hour after the watershed, and is likely to have attracted a large teenage audience. Producers of the show cleared the controversial exchange for broadcast, even though Channel Four could now be fined if found to be guilty of breaching guidelines on indecent behaviour. Under Ofcom's rules, broadcasters are asked to ensure that potentially offensive material can be justified by its 'context', which includes factors such as the time it was shown, the programme's editorial content and "the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused". There is no list of words that are banned from use on radio or television. While the show was aired after the watershed, the media watchdog will now assess complaints that it has received, in addition to the four made to Channel Four. The BBC initially only received two complaints after Russell Brand left messages on Andrew Sachs's answerphone, but the number rose to thousands after the incident was brought to the public's attention. Peter Foot, the chairman of the National Campaign for Courtesy, said that Walliams's remark was worse than the comments made by Ross and Brand. "I've never heard of anything going this far," he said. "I'm amazed there hasn't been more of an uproar about this because that it is incredibly graphic language to use. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination." Mr Foot said that Channel Four could not justify the lewd joke by saying it was shown after the watershed as he said many teenagers could have been watching. Earlier this year, a Government-backed report raised serious concerns about the level of sexual content that children and teenagers are exposed to on television. Vivienne Pattison, director of mediawatch, said that Channel Four's decision to broadcast the obscene remark demonstrates how far the boundaries of decency have been pushed. "You expect comedians to push the envelope, but it's down to producers to check that it doesn't overstep the mark," she said. "Chris Moyles and David Walliams have a huge young following. They are role models and responsibility comes with that. "Instead, jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it. "This is leading to a coarsening of our culture." A Channel 4 spokesman said: “The show was appropriately scheduled post-watershed at 10pm and viewers were warned of strong language and adult humour.” An Ofcom spokesman said: "Ofcom received two complaints about the episode of the programme, which was broadcast after the watershed. "We will assess the complaints against the Broadcasting Code, the rule book of standards which broadcasters must adhere to." 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Home» 2. Culture» 3. TV and Radio» 4. BBC BBC in decency row over obscene joke by Sandi Toksvig MPs have urged Ofcom to investigate standards at the BBC after bosses claimed that Radio 4 listeners would have taken “delight” in a joke about the most offensive word in the English language that was aired during the afternoon. News Quiz presenter Sandi Toksvig Photo: KAREN ROBINSON By Heidi Blake 7:30AM BST 06 Jun 2011 Comments Comments The corporation received a complaint about the comment by the presenter Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz but said the swear word had lost much of its “shock value” and references to it were suitable. The executive who cleared the joke for daytime transmission said it would “delight” much of the show’s audience, adding that listeners would “love it”. The BBC’s rejection of the complaint has angered MPs and campaigners, who called for greater regulation of potentially offensive content on radio. The reference to the obscene word was in a scripted joke by Toksvig, the broadcaster and a mother of three, about the Conservatives and cuts to child benefit. It was broadcast last October at 6.30pm and the next day at 12.30pm. The programme was cleared by Paul Mayhew Archer, then commissioning editor of Radio 4 Comedy. Colin Harrow, a retired newspaper executive, complained to the BBC and the BBC Trust that the reference was offensive and unacceptable. Both bodies rejected his complaint. In a letter to Mr Harrow, Mr Mayhew Archer wrote: “If my job was simply not to risk offending any listeners I could have cut it instantly. But that is not my job. My job here was to balance the offence it might cause some listeners against the delight it might give other listeners. For good or ill, the word does not seem to have quite the shock value it did. I am not saying this is a good thing. I am simply saying that I think attitudes shift.” John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, called for Ofcom to investigate. “That word is way out in front in terms of people finding it offensive, and I think to broadcast it on radio at 6.30pm is inappropriate. Even though they did it by implication, nobody was left in any doubt about what was meant,” he said. Related Articles * C4 investigated over Walliams joke 06 Nov 2011 * BBC broadcast porn star's fantasies 06 Jan 2009 * Are BBC rules harming television? 10 Nov 2009 * Ofcom to investigate BBC prank 28 Oct 2008 * BBC prank sparks call for inquiry 27 Oct 2008 * 'Gender gap' at the BBC 27 Oct 2009 “Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to the BBC that one of the reasons why this word has lost its shock value is that it is now being used on television and radio. “But I would expect them to be aware of the risk that children might be listening, especially at such an early hour. I hope that the gentleman who made the complaint takes this matter to Ofcom because I think they are the appropriate people to rule on this, not the BBC Trust.” Vivienne Pattison, of the Mediawatch-UK campaign group, said radio programmes, which are free of any controls, should be subject to a watershed. “This is in fact one of the only truly offensive terms we have left,” she said. The BBC said last night: “The BBC has rigorous guidelines. The News Quiz is a long-running panel show aimed at an adult audience. Listeners are used to a certain level of robust humour.” Ofcom said it would open an investigation if it received a formal complaint. It is not the first time the BBC’s standards on decency have been criticised. In October 2008, it received thousands of complaints over crude messages left by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on the answer phone of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor, which were broadcast on Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 show. 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A: Red paint. * Thumb-up * Thumb-down * +8494 Spinner 16 Comments * Twitter * IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fanti-jok e.com%2Fanti-joke%2Fpopular%2Fq-what-is-red-and-smells-like-blue-pa int----a-red-paint &layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&colorsc heme=light * Facebook Roses are red, Violets are blue. I have a gun. 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New Words & Slang 4. Video 5. My Words View your list of saved words. (You can log in using Facebook.) 1. Dictionary 2. Thesaurus 3. Spanish 4. Medical 5. Concise Encyclopedia Submit joke________________ joke 4 ENTRIES FOUND: 1. 1) joke (noun) 2. 2) joke (verb) 3. in-joke (noun) 4. practical joke (noun) ^1joke [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____ noun \ˈjōk\ Definition of JOKE 1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : kidding c : practical joke d : laughingstock 2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter —often used in negative constructions [external.jpg] See joke defined for English-language learners » See joke defined for kids » Examples of JOKE 1. She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. 2. They played a harmless joke on him. 3. They are always making jokes about his car. 4. I heard a funny joke yesterday. 5. the punch line of a joke 6. I didn't get the joke. 7. That exam was a joke. 8. Their product became a joke in the industry. 9. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Origin of JOKE Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks First Known Use: 1670 Related to JOKE Synonyms: boff (or boffo), boffola, crack, drollery, funny, gag, giggle [chiefly British], jape, jest, josh, laugh, nifty, one-liner, pleasantry, quip, rib, sally, waggery, wisecrack, witticism, yuk (or yuck also yak or yock) [slang] Related Words: funning, joking, wisecracking; knee-slapper, panic [slang], riot, scream, thigh-slapper; antic, buffoonery, caper, leg-pull, monkeyshine(s), practical joke, prank, trick; burlesque, caricature, lampoon, mock, mockery, parody, put-on, riff; banter, kidding, persiflage, raillery, repartee; drollness, facetiousness, funniness, hilariousness, humorousness; comedy, humor, wit, wordplay Near Antonyms: homage, tribute see all synonyms and antonyms [+]more[-]hide Rhymes with JOKE bloke, broke, choke, cloak, coke, croak, folk, hoke, moke, oak, poke, Polk, roque, smoke, soak, soke, spoke, stoke, stroke, toke, toque, yogh, yoke, yolk Learn More About JOKE Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for "joke" Spanish-English Dictionary: Translation of "joke" Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "joke" Browse Next Word in the Dictionary: jokebook Previous Word in the Dictionary: jo–jotte All Words Near: joke [seen-heard-left-quote.gif] Seen & Heard [seen-heard-right-quote.gif] What made you want to look up joke? 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Ranker.com - List it. Rank it. Love it. * Signup * Login * Login via Facebook * Login via Twitter Create a List ____________________ GO Browse Categories Home * Browse * Popular * All Time * Vote Lists * best of 2011 * Film * People * TV * Music * funny * Games * Sports * Places/Travel * babes * Food/Drink * offbeat * Cars * Listopedia * Politics & History * Education * Books * Tech * Arts * sexy * Business * Comics * Science < > * share this list * * * * * * * * * * Email The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme Anything The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme By Robert Wabash [50 more lists] more Anti-Joke Chicken is an Advice Animal meme that takes the setups to jokes and then explains them literally, which would usually kill the laughter in any room, but coming out of such a militant, humorless looking chicken, every one of the chicken's joke failures comes across as hilarious. So get ready for rational explanations or humorless answers to jokes that could probably be otherwise good. Here is the best of Anti-Joke Chicken, in all her joke-ruining glory. Nothing less/more satisfying than good anti-jokes. Make a Version Info View 53 Views: 280142 Items: 5 Robert Wabash By Robert Wabash 5Items 280,142Views Tags: funny, best of, Meme, memes Name 1. Who is Anti-Joke Chicken? Anti-Joke Chicken is the latest animal advice meme to come out of Reddit and it hits home for a lot of people, because Anti-Joke Chicken is that person we all know that either can't tell a joke, or always needs to point out the grain of truth in the joke -- even though everyone around them is completely aware of what that grain of truth is, as that grain of truth is usually the joke, or why the joke is funny to begin with. Originally taken from a picture of a chicken that looks, admittedly, humorless... ... Anti-Joke chicken takes every joke literally, so most Anti-Joke Chicken memes will either tell an "anti-joke" (a joke that is funny because it's written or delivered so poorly) or they'll behave like this: [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u51.jpg] Anti-Joke Chicken, for the most part, takes what will most likely be a classic joke of some kind and then botches it by taking the setup literally, which is usually a huge record-scratch moment in real life, but attached to a chicken's face that looks like she means business, the complete failure of the joke itself becomes hilarious. Here's the best of the Anti-Joke Chicken meme. + 0 2. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u50.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u4.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u5.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u6.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u7.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u8.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u9.jpg] + 0 3. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u11.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u12.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u13.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u14.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u15.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u16.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u17.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u18.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u19.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u20.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u21.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u22.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u23.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u24.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u25.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u26.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u27.jpg] + 0 4. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u28.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u29.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u30.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u31.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u32.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u33.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u34.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u35.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u36.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u37.jpg] + 0 5. [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u38.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u39.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u40.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u41.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u42.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u43.jpg] [anti-joke-chicken-photo-u49.jpg] + 0 More Lists * [the-very-best-of-the-paranoid-parrot-meme.jpg?version=132841715800 0] vote on this The Very Best of the Paranoid Parrot Meme by LaurieM * [the-best-of-the-raptor-jesus-meme.jpg?version=1310065091000] The Absolute Best of the Raptor Jesus Meme by Brian Gilmore * [ranker_ajax-loader_100.gif] 10 People Who Actually Have Internet Meme Tattoos by Tat Fancy Post a Comment Login Via: Facebook Twitter Yahoo! Google my comment is about [The List_________________] Write your comment__________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Name or Login : ____________________ Get a new challenge Get an audio challenge Help Incorrect please try again Enter Funny Words He Post! Show Comments About: [The List] 1. jvgjyhhvbyiuv The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:13 AM The fourth one from the bottom is scientifically incorrect. Mass does not effect falling rate. :I reply 1. manuelnas manuelnas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/17/2012 2:37 PM what about the height the plane is at? i mean if it's standing on the ground they could break their legs or something. But death is quite exaggerated... reply 1. Science The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 12:41 PM It does when terminal velocity comes into play, so the denser one would fall faster. -_- reply 1. Nigahiga The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/11/2011 1:48 AM TEEHEE reply 1. fkhgkf The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:57 AM Weight affects the terminal velocity though. So a heavier person wouldn't fall faster to begin with, but would accelerate for longer, therefore hitting the ground first. reply 1. ate chicken The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 2:20 PM body weight is in relation with size and bigger size makes bigger wind resistance and we don't know wether their fall is long enough to reach the terminal velocity reply 1. Iggy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:51 AM The last three exchanges vis a vis the falling rate of the bodies fully illustrates the point made by Our Humorless Chicken, don't ya think? reply 2. blah The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/23/2011 10:47 PM me to reply 3. HA HA POOP The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 10:43 AM True, but their physical size would influence their wind resistance while falling. reply 4. I love you The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:07 AM I've learned so much about gravity and science from these posts that I no longer have to take any science-related courses in college :D reply 5. Susu Susu The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/20/2012 12:38 PM Guy gets crabs after sleeping with a girl. Boils them to make her dinner because he respects and appreciates her. reply 6. Arrogant Bastard The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 10:31 PM The set up:\n\nBarack Obama, the Pope, and a Boy Scout are on a private flight. The pilot runs out of the cockpit and says "The plane is going to crash. There are only 3 parachutes, and I have to use one so I can the FAA what happened." The pilot puts on one of the chutes and dives out of the plane.\n\nBarack Obama turns to the Pope and the Boy Scout and says "I'm the leader of the free world and the smartest president in the history of the United States, so I must survive." He throws on a pack and dives out of the plane.\n\nThe Pope turns to the boy scout and says "Son, I've lived a long and fulfilling life. You take the last parachute and save yourself."\n\nThe boy scout replies "No problem, Mr. Pope. There are still 2 parachutes left. President Obama just jumped out of the plane with my knapsack." \n\nChicken: Because Barack is actually an idiot. reply 1. noranud noranud The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/14/2011 8:52 AM the pope probably stayed in the plane so he could molest the boy scout! reply 7. chickenfan The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 11:49 AM I like the anti-joke chicken. It's smart and answers rationally. And it speaks out against racist and sexist stereotypes :> reply 8. lololol The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/26/2011 7:35 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJcZ-KoL9o reply 9. acuity12 acuity12 The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 8/11/2011 6:06 PM Haha nice... superb list. You guys can make your own anti-joke chickens at imgflip.com/memegen/anti-joke-chicken reply 10. shutup The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 3:49 PM not funny, but gay at least reply 11. bill The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/25/2011 6:51 PM and the grammar is proper shart too i could tell and i'm quite dyslexic reply 12. Amazeballs The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/16/2011 5:42 PM My eyes are tearing from laughing so much reply 13. Scientist The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:32 AM The one regarding jumping out of an airplane is false. Everyone knows that weight and mass have no bearing on the velocity a moving body has when pulled by gravity. That chicken is retarded. reply 1. Guy Who Understands Physics The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 10:02 AM I'm guessing you've gone to a low level physics class and did trajectory and gravity equations solved some problems did some lectures, understood it. I'm also guessing that you never got to anything involving air friction and how weight, surface area, and even shape play a role in determining falling long distances. If you got a feather and a small metal bead that had the same mass which would fall faster? the bead, although if they were both beads or if it was in a vacuum they would fall the same. So I'm hoping you can figure out how two people could fall differently if there are differences between them. reply 1. Awesome The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/16/2011 10:51 AM Guy who understands Physics = Win reply 1. Guy who hates lying chickens The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:11 PM Scientist: Winner Guy Who Understands Physics: Loser But the first person loses because they were writing on the grounds of what everyone knows, yet used the word "retarded" as their go-to burn. Yet the second person loses even more, because they were writing on the grounds of understanding physics. Which is completely lame and unnecessary grounds by which to critique a joke. Basically, anyone who would even bother writing on this topic has too much time on their hands, or simply can not understand the point of jokes. [it is highly unlikely that the misleading representation of physics present in that joke was going to have any repercussions in the scientific community] There you have it, an ironically, and exponentially long critique of some dork's paragraph long critique of some other dork's few sentence long critique of some random person's sentence long critique of the overdone territory of blonde jokes. The End. reply 1. TurboFool The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 11:10 PM Runner-up loser: guy who doesn't understand that Guy Who Understands Physics was defending the joke against Scientist and not critiquing it. reply 1. Mr slufy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/03/2011 10:44 PM You're all losers. The chicken wins. It's a talking chicken, I mean, come on. reply 1. Zombie Kid The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 3/27/2011 8:26 PM I like turtles reply 1. Afghanistan Banana Stand The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 8:44 AM Zombie Kid=Winner reply 1. ziggerknot The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/01/2011 11:09 PM everyone knows the real winner is charlie sheen reply 1. That One Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/04/2011 9:44 PM Everyone Knows Chuck Norris Always Wins. reply 1. Chuck Norris The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/09/2011 10:15 PM Everyone knows mexicans have no rights reply 1. That other Mexican The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/08/2011 4:19 PM we are too busy fucing your women reply 1. gangstar The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 5:49 AM $17, wait what? reply 1. digglet The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/10/2011 3:41 PM I poop too much reply 1. Mewtwo The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/14/2011 10:21 AM Everyone knows Digglet is a c**p pokemon reply 1. ash ketchum The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 4:06 AM hey im ash ketchum pokemon trainer, reply 1. professor oak The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/17/2011 2:36 PM im oak i had sex with ashes mom reply 1. Ashes Mom The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 11:17 AM and i loved it. reply 1. The Combo Breaker The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/22/2011 12:35 PM C-C-C-C-C-COMBOBREAKER reply 1. Your Mother The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/02/2011 9:04 AM You children go on some weird websites... reply 1. Darth Vader The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/05/2011 5:48 PM DO NOT WANT reply 1. DA CHICKEN The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 12:35 PM bump penis gay s**t reply 1. Optimus Prime The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/14/2011 10:16 PM Dolphins are a threat to the human race reply 1. Confused The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 6/28/2011 2:54 PM Why were people talking about physics on a web page for the Anti-Joke Chicken Meme? reply 1. SammYam The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/05/2011 9:31 PM i like pie reply 1. somalian pirate The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 7/22/2011 2:50 PM i bet a single guy posted all this and he is schizophrenic reply 14. Patrick The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 11/08/2011 6:38 PM It wouldn't matter what their weights were if a blonde and a brunette jumped out of a plane. All objects undergo acceleration at 32.2 ft/s^2 in a free fall. However, it might matter what their relative surface areas were, because the frictional force might play a part in determining who hits the ground first. They also would not die for certain. There are numerous instances of people falling out of planes and surviving incredible falls. reply 1. Anonymous The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 1/26/2012 4:36 AM Actually it would due to terminal velocity Vt=√(2mg/ρACd), where m is the mass reply 15. whatever The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/02/2011 5:08 PM i love anti joke chicken reply 16. jotor The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/27/2011 8:23 AM Horrible.. reply 17. Some Broad The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/06/2011 10:14 PM I don't give a s**t what you guys think, I laughed my ass off. reply 18. That guy The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 9/11/2011 6:27 AM anyone else read these like an angry black man? reply 19. Nevermind The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 2/28/2011 2:42 AM leave the body-less chicken and blonde-science alone! It's a JOKE people! reply 20. Porkas The Absolute Best of The Anti-Joke Chicken Meme at 5/12/2011 7:14 AM Oh, I still can't catch my breath. Amazing. reply Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-best-of-the-business-cat-meme.jpg?version=1328598022000] vote on this The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme ... * [the-very-best-of-the-hipster-ariel-meme.jpg?version=1328388912000] vote on this The Very Best of the Hipster Ariel Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Lonely Computer Guy ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Guido Jesus Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Nyan Cat Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] The Very Best of the Scumbag Stacy Meme more by Robert Wabash * The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme The Absolute Best of the Business Cat Meme * The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme The Very Best of the Good Guy Lucifer Meme * The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme The Very Best of the Pickup Line Scientist Meme * The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History The 20 Greatest Sharks in Pop Culture History IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faceb ook.com%2Franker&width=300&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_col or=%23cacaca&stream=false&header=false&height=256 Top in Category Related Lists Top on Ranker * [the-very-best-of-the-courage-wolf-meme.jpg?version=1327850421000] vote on this The Very Best of the Courage Wolf Meme * [the-christian-god-is-a-troll-best-of-the-advice-god-meme.jpg?versi on=1306958448000] God is an Epic Troll: The Best of the Advice God Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Futurama Fry Meme * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Tech Impaired Duck Meme ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Horrifying Houseguest ... * [ranker_ajax-loader_128.gif] vote on this The Very Best of the Butthurt Dweller Meme ... 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Proceed at your own risk. #Urban Word of the Day Urban Dictionary Search IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com %2Furbandictionary&send=false&layout=button_count&width=100&show_faces= false&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=21 look up any word, like bootylicious: inside joke_________ search word of the day dictionary thesaurus names media store add edit blog random A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # new favorites [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] * inside baseball * inside bi * Inside Boob * inside boys * insideburns * Inside Consummation * inside dawg * inside dog * Inside Edition * inside fart * Inside Helicopter * inside homosexual * inside hot * Inside inside joke * Inside job * inside joke * Inside joke * inside joking * Inside Lie * InsideLime * inside man * insideoutable * inside out albino mushroom dalmation * inside-out-burger * Inside out butt * inside out, double stuffed oreo * inside-outen * inside-out fish (inseedacli-repi-stan... * insideout hawiian pancake * Inside Outhouse * Inside Out joke * inside out mushroom dalmation * inside out oreo * Inside out pancakes * inside out pink sock * inside outside * Inside-out sock * inside out starfish * inside-out stripteaser * Inside-Outted Pillow * Inside-Out Voice [uparrow.gif] [downarrow.gif] thesaurus for inside joke: funny joke friends jokes random stupid inside laugh sex fuck fun lol annoying awesome inside jokes wtf cool cotton swab creepy facebook more... 1. Inside joke An inside joke is a joke formed between two or more people that no one other than those few people will ever understand until you explain it to them. And even when you do explain it to them, they may get the joke but may not find it even remotely amusing. People generally find inside jokes annoying, as the joke makes absolutley no sense on its own in any context. I find that most of the stupidest ones that have been formed by own group were formed by accident. Perhaps that is why most of them make absolutely no sense. However, the inside joke can backfire. In one instance, two people can have an inside joke, and a third person finds out about said joke. Then, the third person find it even MORE funny than either of the two who formed in the first place. Truly annoying. I have about 100 or more inside jokes formed between me and one particular friend alone. We even have an inside joke about how someday every word we say is going to be an inside joke. Which, someday, may occur. Random person: Yeah, so I went to the pet store, and there were some bunnies there. They were really cute. Group of friends: BUNNIES ON THE CEILING! AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: What? *inside joke is explained* Random person: Oh. Well, uh, that's not THAT funny. Group of friends: Yes it is! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Random person: Uh, ok... *backs away slowly* buy inside joke mugs & shirts joke inside annoying friends pointless by Elise Sawyer Aug 13, 2006 share this add a video 2. inside joke n. a joke or saying that has meaning to a few select people on the 'inside', and none to anyone else. Generally very annoying; try searching for a definition on Urban Dictionary without running into at least one. You'll find you can't. OMG, Jenna somerville is da shiznit! Her name is, like, synonymous with tool. I hate Chris because of a stuffed animal named purple nurple buy inside joke mugs & shirts by =west= Dec 8, 2003 share this add a video 3. inside joke Something shared usually among close/best friends. WHen you can say a simple word or phrase and be sent into hysterical laughing, that word or phrase is an inside joke. To other people who are "out side", the ones who are "in side" seem preppy, stupid, and immature. Fish chow!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! xDDDDDDDDDDD buy inside joke mugs & shirts by Kalcutta May 29, 2005 share this add a video 4. inside joke a joke that is formed with a select few people. Later when a certain word is shouted (like ex. cheese grater) the people "inside" will laugh hystericly while others will only be confused. some inside jokes with my friends cheese grater bam! its huge! see? if i said that you wouldnt get it, but my friends would lol buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside joke stuff funny jokes cows by noob killer! hax Oct 2, 2005 share this add a video 5. inside joke An inside joke is a joke, usually extremely silly and stupid, that you share with one or 2 other people. Only you and those people understand the joke; if the inside joke is explained to other people, they start to wonder if you are crazy because you find something so silly hilarious. Katie: Are you aching for some bacon? Hahaha! Jayne: What? That's not even funny! Katie: It's an inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts friends best friends besties fun laugh laughing funny joke by Amyy.xox Jul 2, 2009 share this add a video 6. Inside joke Have you ever just randomly started laughing in the middle of class because of something that happened the other day? If not, you probably need more inside jokes. Why would I laugh randomly in the middle of class for no apparent reason, you might add, whats an inside joke?, well. PAGING SHANE PAGINING PAGING SHANE, COME OVER HERE SHANE. Wait What? what did that have to do with what im talking about? well that random blurt you just heard that made absolutly no sense to you or didnât seem funny whatsoever, was an inside joke. An inside joke is something that makes absolutely no sense out of context or is the cause of many awkward "you just had to be there" moments, causing people to become iritable and crack out on demand when this unique phrase is mentioned. Friend: HAHA DUDE PANCAKES! PAL: HAHAHA OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY Buddy: what are you guys talking about? Friend: oh well the other day bill threw a pancake at me and landed on my dog Buddy: What? Friend: hahaha...oh you just had to be there Pal: It's an inside joke buy inside joke mugs & shirts inside jokes you just had to be there inside joke funny what the eff? by pseudonym 101 Jan 7, 2010 share this add a video 7. inside joke n. somthing incredibly funny that only you and your friends who were there at the time will ever understand. Ever. Meghan: The s*** has hit the fan. Doooodleootdoo doo. Multiple people: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! oh gahh that was funny. Victor: i don't get it. Me: Inside joke. buy inside joke mugs & shirts jokes joke outside joke stupid joke friends joke by Kevin Garcia Dec 7, 2005 share this add a video « Previous 1 2 3 Next » permalink: ____________________ Share on Send to a friend your email: ____________________ their email: ____________________ comment: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ [ ] send me the word of the day (it's free) Send message Urban Dictionary ©1999-2012 terms of service privacy feedback remove advertise technology jobs live support add via rss or google calendar add urban dictionary on facebook search ud from your phone or via txt follow urbandaily on twitter #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Joke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). [edit] Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. [edit] Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] [edit] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. [edit] Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] [edit] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. [edit] Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. [edit] Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] [edit] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax. [edit] Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. [edit] Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. [edit] Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. [edit] Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] [edit] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. [edit] Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. [edit] Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. [edit] See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke [edit] Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. [edit] References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. [edit] Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] [edit] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joke&oldid=475420861" Categories: * Humor * Jokes Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from August 2010 * All articles needing additional references * Wikipedia articles needing style editing from October 2011 * All articles needing style editing * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from November 2008 * All Wikipedia articles needing clarification * Wikipedia articles needing clarification from November 2008 * Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010 * Articles needing additional references from March 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011 * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2007 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Aymar aru * Azərbaycanca * Български * Boarisch * བོད་ཡིག * Bosanski * Català * Česky * Dansk * Deutsch * Eesti * Ελληνικά * Español * Esperanto * Euskara * فارسی * Français * 한국어 * Հայերեն * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Italiano * עברית * Latina * Magyar * मराठी * Bahasa Melayu * Монгол * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Runa Simi * Русский * Русиньскый * Simple English * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * Walon * West-Vlams * ייִדיש * Žemaitėška * 中文 * This page was last modified on 6 February 2012 at 16:55. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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UK News The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain’s oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men’s sexual desire. The Exeter Codex which is kept in Exeter Cathedral library Researchers found examples of double-entendres buried in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral Photo: SAM FURLONG / SWNS By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent 2:39PM BST 31 Jul 2008 Comments Comments They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.” Scouring ancient texts, researchers from Wolverhampton University found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald, a comic novelist and lecturer in creative writing, said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today. He said jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Related Articles * What is the greatest joke ever told? 01 Aug 2008 “Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research,” he commented. Lost civilisations laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, Dr McDonald said. But they found evidence that Egyptians were laughing at much the same thing. "Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from a period that pre-dates Christ. The study, for a digital television channel, took Dr McDonald and a five-strong team of scholars more than three months to complete. They trawled the internet, contacted dozens of museums, and spoke to numerous private book collectors in a bid to track down modern, interpreted versions of the world's oldest texts. The team then read the texts to find hidden jokes, double-entendres or funny riddles. Dr McDonald said only those jokes that were amusing in an historical and modern context were included in the list. Dr McDonald, a comic novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing, added: "We began with the assumption that the oldest forms of jokes just would not have modern day appeal, but a lot of them do. The world's oldest surviving joke "is essentially a fart gag", he said. The 3,000-year-old Sumerian proverb, from ancient Babylonia, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." The joke has echoes of actor John Barrymore's quip: "Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock." Dr McDonald commented: "Toilet humour goes back just about as far as we can go." Steve North, from Dave television, said: "What is interesting about these ancient jokes is that they feature the same old stand up comedy subjects: relationships, toilet humour and sex jokes. "The delivery may be different, but the subject matter hasn't changed a bit." X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! 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Home» 2. News» 3. Your View What is the greatest joke ever told? Academics have unearthed what they believe to be the world's oldest jokes and concluded that humour has changed very little. Human beings have always laughed at farts, sex, and "stupid people" just as we do today, said Dr Paul McDonald from Wolverhampton University. Visitors at Vitality Show 2004 set new record in laughter yoga event What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Photo: JOHN TAYLOR 12:08AM BST 01 Aug 2008 Comments Comments Britain's "oldest joke", discovered in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral, reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Egyptians were telling jokes even earlier, according to researchers. One gag, which pre-dates Christ, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap". Is a gag's content most important or its delivery? Have any jokes offended you? Or shouldn't humour be taken too seriously? What is the greatest joke you have ever heard? Related Articles * UK's oldest joke revealed 31 Jul 2008 * Can anyone save Labour? 31 Jul 2008 * Is the GP system letting us down? 31 Jul 2008 * Is gossip good for us? 30 Jul 2008 * Who should be the next Labour leader? 29 Jul 2008 * Would crime maps make the streets safer? 28 Jul 2008 X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/2482216/What-is-the-greatest-j oke-ever-told.html Telegraph Your View X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? 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Pope 'exorcised two men in the Vatican', claims new book 4. Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France 5. India tells Britain: We don't want your aid 1. Costa Concordia: investigators probe role of young Moldovan woman on cruise ship 2. Last surviving veteran of First World War dies aged 110 3. Britain had to plead with US to take part in Iran flotilla 4. Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 5. It’s time to end the failed war on drugs Editor's Choice » Recession? That’s for other people Making the headlines: BBC newsreader Jane Hill is reported to have said she should have a clothes allowance - Recession? That’s for other people Free iPads for MPs, clothes allowances for newsreaders..where will gravy train stop for public sector workers, asks Max Davidson. Skinny: The look with endless legs Should HMRC have paid for information? How do we help get rid of Assad? Will the king find his voice on stage? 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Home» 2. News» 3. News Topics» 4. How about that? Dead Parrot sketch is 1,600 years old It's long been held that the old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different. Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' - which featured John Cleese (pictured) - is some 1,600 years old Photo: TV STILL By Stephen Adams 11:35PM GMT 13 Nov 2008 Comments Comments A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Related Articles * Union boss: New Labour is dead like Monty Python parrot 11 Sep 2009 Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969. Their version featured Cleese as an exasperated customer trying to get his money back from Palin's stubborn pet salesman. Cleese's character becomes increasingly frustrated as he fails to convince the shopkeeper that the 'Norwegian Blue' is dead. The manuscripts from the Greek joke book have now been published in an online book, featuring former Bullseye presenter and comic Jim Bowen presenting them to a modern audience. Mr Bowen said: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. "They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque." Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game. One joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?" The book was translated by William Berg, an American classics professor. X Share & bookmark Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz What are these? * Share: Share Tweet http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Pa rrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Telegraph How about that? * News » * UK News » * Celebrity news » * Debates » In How about that? 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Good – we're pleased you're up for it. Don't worry it won't cost you a penny and it takes only a few seconds of your precious, precious time. As a member you will be able to do the following exciting things: + Enter competitions and maybe even win something + Comment on and bookmark your favourite articles + Sign-up for our fortnightly newsletter for news on all things Dave Register Now * Login Welcome Back Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Password reminder? Resend activation Login! Not yet registered? Register now *indicates mandatory field Login * Home * Dave shows * TV Listings * Watch Suits * Dave Icons * Comedy * Cars * Video clips * Quizzes & Trivia * Win * Podcast * You are here: * Dave * Blogs * The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Ben Shires 4 November 2011 Posted by: Ben Shires The Dave Weekly podcast Listen to Episode 11: Tim Vine, Adam Hills and Black Beauty. He's a dark horse Posted by Ben Shires on 4 Nov 11 0 Ben and Tim Vine Blimey, is it that time of the week again already? These things seem to come round quicker than a Kim Kardashian divorce, but I’ve checked the diary and despite the horological Gods trying to fool us by putting the clocks back, it’s definitely the blogging hour. Despite the aforementioned tragic demise of Ms Kardashian’s nuptials, and with it the undermining of the sanctity of marriage itself, this week’s episode has risen like a phoenix from Kim’s smouldering confetti ashes. And stoking those flames is a man who, if comics were motorways would be the MPun, Mr. Tim Vine. Now, previous listeners and those who know me will be well aware of my deep seated dislike of puns and wordplay in general, arising from an unpleasant incident whereby I was mauled by a particularly vicious one-liner as a child (@Pronger69 could be very cruel). Those who know me will also know that the previous sentence is complete bunkum (apart from the bit about my dad) and there is literally NOTHING I like better than a cheeky witticism, or in this case, a veritable barrage of them. And when I say literally, I mean literally. I have in the past been known to give up food in favour of dining solely on the delicious jokes found on the back of Penguin wrappers, occasionally licking the chocolate off the other side for sustenance when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, Tim, the nation’s foremost machine punner, was more than happy to feed my insatiable appetite, and with me offering verbal hors d’oeuvres as well we were soon talking almost exclusively in witty riddles, or whittles. Which is coincidental, as Whittle is also the name of Tim’s fondly remembered Channel 5 game show from the mid-90s, a subject we discussed with glee. And I don’t mean the Amreican high school musical drama series, Tim has not appeared on that as yet. Ben and Adam Hills Someone else who hasn’t been on Glee is this week’s other guest Adam Hills, though with his ever-growing international renown it’s surely only a matter of time. Fortunately, all this high praise hadn’t gone to Adam’s head and we were able to spend a very pleasant morning sat on a park bench, discussing all manner of life’s trifling details. It almost seemed a shame to have to shove microphones under our noses and record the damn thing, but shove we must. And with the word shove still ringing in your ears and maybe other orifices too, it’s time to once again bid you adieu. Goodbye for now, Fraulines and Frownlines x Listen to the podcast below or download it for FREE from iTunes now! See all posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Save for later * Share with mates + Reddit + Delicious + Stumble Upon + Digg + G Bookmarks + Email this Page * * Tweet this * Add a comment You must be registered to make a comment! * Password reminder? * Resend activation * Not yet registered? Register now Email Address* ____________________ Password* ____________________ Login! *indicates mandatory field * The Dave Weekly Search Enter keywords ____________________ Search Advertisement Recent posts in The Dave Weekly podcast * Listen to Episode 24: Nick Helm, Journalists doing stand-up and not reading War and Peace * Listen to Episode 24: Tom Deacon, Toby Williams and piles of honesty * Listen to Episode 23: Welcome to Leicester with Abandoman * Listen to Episode 22: Alex Horne, The Frog and Bucket and Manchester, la, la, la * Listen to Episode 21: Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival Preview Show Browse by Author * Nick Gibbs Nick Gibbs * Donal Coonan Donal Coonan * Dara O'Briain Dara O'Briain * Marcus Brigstocke Marcus Brigstocke * Rufus Hound Rufus Hound * Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn * Chris Barrie Chris Barrie * Danny John-Jules Danny John-Jules Nick Gibbs The Dave Weekly podcast archive * February 2012 * January 2012 * September 2011 * August 2011 * December 2011 * November 2011 * October 2011 * Watch * GOLD * Dave * Alibi * Yesterday * Eden * Blighty * Really * Home * Good Food * TV Listings * UKTV Friends of Dave Here's some of our chums. 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We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be translated from one language into another, though at the cost of losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In this case, it is language itself that becomes comic. Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation; if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background. Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty. All that we can say is that it is laughable. Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light. Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit there is something of a poet--just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor's art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one's soul and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another "for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!" [Footnote: "Pour rien, pour le plaisir" is a quotation from Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence. But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes--dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them. Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilised into a witticism. Every witty remark, then, lends itself to an analysis, whose chemical formula, so to say, we are now in a position to state. It runs as follows: Take the remark, first enlarge it into a regular scene, then find out the category of the comic to which the scene evidently belongs: by this means you reduce the witty remark to its simplest elements and obtain a full explanation of it. Let us apply this method to a classic example. "Your chest hurts me" (J'AI MAL A VOTRE POITRINE) wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her ailing daughter--clearly a witty saying. If our theory is correct, we need only lay stress upon the saying, enlarge and magnify it, and we shall see it expand into a comic scene. Now, we find this very scene, ready made, in the AMOUR MEDECIN of Moliere. The sham doctor, Clitandre, who has been summoned to attend Sganarelle's daughter, contents himself with feeling Sganarelle's own pulse, whereupon, relying on the sympathy there must be between father and daughter, he unhesitatingly concludes: "Your daughter is very ill!" Here we have the transition from the witty to the comical. To complete our analysis, then, all we have to do is to discover what there is comical in the idea of giving a diagnosis of the child after sounding the father or the mother. Well, we know that one essential form of comic fancy lies in picturing to ourselves a living person as a kind of jointed dancing-doll, and that frequently, with the object of inducing us to form this mental picture, we are shown two or more persons speaking and acting as though attached to one another by invisible strings. Is not this the idea here suggested when we are led to materialise, so to speak, the sympathy we postulate as existing between father and daughter? We now see how it is that writers on wit have perforce confined themselves to commenting on the extraordinary complexity of the things denoted by the term without ever succeeding in defining it. There are many ways of being witty, almost as many as there are of being the reverse. How can we detect what they have in common with one another, unless we first determine the general relationship between the witty and the comic? Once, however, this relationship is cleared up, everything is plain sailing. We then find the same connection between the comic and the witty as exists between a regular scene and the fugitive suggestion of a possible one. Hence, however numerous the forms assumed by the comic, wit will possess an equal number of corresponding varieties. So that the comic, in all its forms, is what should be defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his laboratory, would prefer getting that substance from the atmosphere, in which merely infinitesimal traces of its vapour are to be found? But this comparison between the witty and the comic is also indicative of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is nothing more, if one may so express oneself, than their projection on to the plane of words. So let us return to the comic in actions and in situations, consider the chief methods by which it is obtained, and apply them to the choice of words and the building up of sentences. We shall thus have every possible form of the comic in words as well as every variety of wit. 1. Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression. Do we find this kind of rigidity in language also? No doubt we do, since language contains ready-made formulas and stereotyped phrases. The man who always expressed himself in such terms would invariably be comic. But if an isolated phrase is to be comic in itself, when once separated from the person who utters it, it must be something more than ready-made, it must bear within itself some sign which tells us, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it was uttered automatically. This can only happen when the phrase embodies some evident absurdity, either a palpable error or a contradiction in terms. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC MEANING IS INVARIABLY OBTAINED WHEN AN ABSURD IDEA IS FITTED INTO A WELL- ESTABLISHED PHRASE-FORM. "Ce sabre est le plus beau jour de ma vie," said M. Prudhomme. Translate the phrase into English or German and it becomes purely absurd, though it is comic enough in French. The reason is that "le plus beau jour de ma vie" is one of those ready-made phrase-endings to which a Frenchman's ear is accustomed. To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious. We have quoted only one saying of M. Prudhomme, but the majority of those attributed to him belong to the same class. M. Prudhomme is a man of ready-made phrases. And as there are ready-made phrases in all languages, M. Prudhomme is always capable of being transposed, though seldom of being translated. At times the commonplace phrase, under cover of which the absurdity slips in, is not so readily noticeable. "I don't like working between meals," said a lazy lout. There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals." Sometimes, too, the effect is a complicated one. Instead of one commonplace phrase-form, there are two or three which are dovetailed into each other. Take, for instance, the remark of one of the characters in a play by Labiche, "Only God has the right to kill His fellow-creature." It would seem that advantage is here taken of two separate familiar sayings; "It is God who disposes of the lives of men," and, "It is criminal for a man to kill his fellow-creature." But the two sayings are combined so as to deceive the ear and leave the impression of being one of those hackneyed sentences that are accepted as a matter of course. Hence our attention nods, until we are suddenly aroused by the absurdity of the meaning. These examples suffice to show how one of the most important types of the comic can be projected--in a simplified form--on the plane of speech. We will now proceed to a form which is not so general. 2. "We laugh if our attention is diverted to the physical in a person when it is the moral that is in question," is a law we laid down in the first part of this work. Let us apply it to language. Most words might be said to have a PHYSICAL and a MORAL meaning, according as they are interpreted literally or figuratively. Every word, indeed, begins by denoting a concrete object or a material action; but by degrees the meaning of the word is refined into an abstract relation or a pure idea. If, then, the above law holds good here, it should be stated as follows: "A comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression which was used figuratively"; or, "Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic." In the phrase, "Tous les arts sont freres" (all the arts are brothers), the word "frere" (brother) is used metaphorically to indicate a more or less striking resemblance. The word is so often used in this way, that when we hear it we do not think of the concrete, the material connection implied in every relationship. We should notice it more if we were told that "Tous les arts sont cousins," for the word "cousin" is not so often employed in a figurative sense; that is why the word here already assumes a slight tinge of the comic. But let us go further still, and suppose that our attention is attracted to the material side of the metaphor by the choice of a relationship which is incompatible with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty saying, though nothing more than the beginning, for the word "catch" is interpreted figuratively almost as often as the word "run"; nor does it compel us more strongly than the latter to materialise the image of two runners, the one at the heels of the other. In order that the rejoinder may appear to be a thoroughly witty one, we must borrow from the language of sport an expression so vivid and concrete that we cannot refrain from witnessing the race in good earnest. This is what Boufflers does when he retorts, "I'll back the joke!" We said that wit often consists in extending the idea of one's interlocutor to the point of making him express the opposite of what he thinks and getting him, so to say, entrapt by his own words. We must now add that this trap is almost always some metaphor or comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."--"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."--"Well, out of what do you expect us to take it?" An amusing result is likewise obtainable whenever a symbol or an emblem is expanded on its concrete side, and a pretence is made of retaining the same symbolical value for this expansion as for the emblem itself. In a very lively comedy we are introduced to a Monte Carlo official, whose uniform is covered with medals, although he has only received a single decoration. "You see, I staked my medal on a number at roulette," he said, "and as the number turned up, I was entitled to thirty-six times my stake." This reasoning is very similar to that offered by Giboyer in the Effrontes. Criticism is made of a bride of forty summers who is wearing orange-blossoms with her wedding costume: "Why, she was entitled to oranges, let alone orange-blossoms!" remarked Giboyer. But we should never cease were we to take one by one all the laws we have stated, and try to prove them on what we have called the plane of language. We had better confine ourselves to the three general propositions of the preceding section. We have shown that "series of events" may become comic either by repetition, by inversion, or by reciprocal interference. Now we shall see that this is also the case with series of words. To take series of events and repeat them in another key or another environment, or to invert them whilst still leaving them a certain meaning, or mix them up so that their respective meanings jostle one another, is invariably comic, as we have already said, for it is getting life to submit to be treated as a machine. But thought, too, is a living thing. And language, the translation of thought, should be just as living. We may thus surmise that a phrase is likely to become comic if, though reversed, it still makes sense, or if it expresses equally well two quite independent sets of ideas, or, finally, if it has been obtained by transposing an idea into some key other than its own. Such, indeed, are the three fundamental laws of what might be called THE COMIC TRANSFORMATION OF SENTENCES, as we shall show by a few examples. Let it first be said that these three laws are far from being of equal importance as regards the theory of the ludicrous. INVERSION is the least interesting of the three. It must be easy of application, however, for it is noticeable that, no sooner do professional wits hear a sentence spoken than they experiment to see if a meaning cannot be obtained by reversing it,--by putting, for instance, the subject in place of the object, and the object in place of the subject. It is not unusual for this device to be employed for refuting an idea in more or less humorous terms. One of the characters in a comedy of Labiche shouts out to his neighbour on the floor above, who is in the habit of dirtying his balcony, "What do you mean by emptying your pipe on to my terrace?" The neighbour retorts, "What do you mean by putting your terrace under my pipe?" There is no necessity to dwell upon this kind of wit, instances of which could easily be multiplied. The RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, by imperceptible stages, to the true play upon words. Here there is really one and the same sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words; but advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally. So that in fact there is often only a slight difference between the play upon words on the one hand, and a poetic metaphor or an illuminating comparison on the other. Whereas an illuminating comparison and a striking image always seem to reveal the close harmony that exists between language and nature, regarded as two parallel forms of life, the play upon words makes us think somehow of a negligence on the part of language, which, for the time being, seems to have forgotten its real function and now claims to accommodate things to itself instead of accommodating itself to things. And so the play upon words always betrays a momentary LAPSE OF ATTENTION in language, and it is precisely on that account that it is amusing. INVERSION and RECIPROCAL INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what repetition is to comedy. We said that repetition is the favourite method of classic comedy. It consists in so arranging events that a scene is reproduced either between the same characters under fresh circumstances or between fresh characters under the same circumstances. Thus we have, repeated by lackeys in less dignified language, a scene already played by their masters. Now, imagine ideas expressed in suitable style and thus placed in the setting of their natural environment. If you think of some arrangement whereby they are transferred to fresh surroundings, while maintaining their mutual relations, or, in other words, if you can induce them to express themselves in an altogether different style and to transpose themselves into another key, you will have language itself playing a comedy--language itself made comic. There will be no need, moreover, actually to set before us both expressions of the same ideas, the transposed expression and the natural one. For we are acquainted with the natural one--the one which we should have chosen instinctively. So it will be enough if the effort of comic invention bears on the other, and on the other alone. No sooner is the second set before us than we spontaneously supply the first. Hence the following general rule: A COMIC EFFECT IS ALWAYS OBTAINABLE BY TRANSPOSING THE NATURE EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA INTO ANOTHER KEY. The means of transposition are so many and varied, language affords so rich a continuity of themes and the comic is here capable of passing through so great a number of stages, from the most insipid buffoonery up to the loftiest forms of humour and irony, that we shall forego the attempt to make out a complete list. Having stated the rule, we will simply, here and there, verify its main applications. In the first place, we may distinguish two keys at the extreme ends of the scale, the solemn and the familiar. The most obvious effects are obtained by merely transposing the one into the other, which thus provides us with two opposite currents of comic fancy. Transpose the solemn into the familiar and the result is parody. The effect of parody, thus defined, extends to instances in which the idea expressed in familiar terms is one that, if only in deference to custom, ought to be pitched in another key. Take as an example the following description of the dawn, quoted by Jean Paul Richter: "The sky was beginning to change from black to red, like a lobster being boiled." Note that the expression of old-world matters in terms of modern life produces the same effect, by reason of the halo of poetry which surrounds classical antiquity. It is doubtless the comic in parody that has suggested to some philosophers, and in particular to Alexander Bain, the idea of defining the comic, in general, as a species of DEGRADATION. They describe the laughable as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified. But if our analysis is correct, degradation is only one form of transposition, and transposition itself only one of the means of obtaining laughter. There is a host of others, and the source of laughter must be sought for much further back. Moreover, without going so far, we see that while the transposition from solemn to trivial, from better to worse, is comic, the inverse transposition may be even more so. It is met with as often as the other, and, apparently, we may distinguish two main forms of it, according as it refers to the PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS of an object or to its MORAL VALUE. To speak of small things as though they were large is, in a general way, TO EXAGGERATE. Exaggeration is always comic when prolonged, and especially when systematic; then, indeed, it appears as one method of transposition. It excites so much laughter that some writers have been led to define the comic as exaggeration, just as others have defined it as degradation. As a matter of fact, exaggeration, like degradation, is only one form of one kind of the comic. Still, it is a very striking form. It has given birth to the mock-heroic poem, a rather old-fashioned device, I admit, though traces of it are still to be found in persons inclined to exaggerate methodically. It might often be said of braggadocio that it is its mock-heroic aspect which makes us laugh. Far more artificial, but also far more refined, is the transposition upwards from below when applied to the moral value of things, not to their physical dimensions. To express in reputable language some disreputable idea, to take some scandalous situation, some low-class calling or disgraceful behaviour, and describe them in terms of the utmost "RESPECTABILITY," is generally comic. The English word is here purposely employed, as the practice itself is characteristically English. Many instances of it may be found in Dickens and Thackeray, and in English literature generally. Let us remark, in passing, that the intensity of the effect does not here depend on its length. A word is sometimes sufficient, provided it gives us a glimpse of an entire system of transposition accepted in certain social circles and reveals, as it were, a moral organisation of immorality. Take the following remark made by an official to one of his subordinates in a novel of Gogol's, "Your peculations are too extensive for an official of your rank." Summing up the foregoing, then, there are two extreme terms of comparison, the very large and the very small, the best and the worst, between which transposition may be effected in one direction or the other. Now, if the interval be gradually narrowed, the contrast between the terms obtained will be less and less violent, and the varieties of comic transposition more and more subtle. The most common of these contrasts is perhaps that between the real and the ideal, between what is and what ought to be. Here again transposition may take place in either direction. Sometimes we state what ought to be done, and pretend to believe that this is just what is actually being done; then we have IRONY. Sometimes, on the contrary, we describe with scrupulous minuteness what is being done, and pretend to believe that this is just what ought to be done; such is often the method of HUMOUR. Humour, thus denned, is the counterpart of irony. Both are forms of satire, but irony is oratorical in its nature, whilst humour partakes of the scientific. Irony is emphasised the higher we allow ourselves to be uplifted by the idea of the good that ought to be: thus irony may grow so hot within us that it becomes a kind of high-pressure eloquence. On the other hand, humour is the more emphasised the deeper we go down into an evil that actually is, in order t o set down its details in the most cold-blooded indifference. Several authors, Jean Paul amongst them, have noticed that humour delights in concrete terms, technical details, definite facts. If our analysis is correct, this is not an accidental trait of humour, it is its very essence. A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. By still further curtailing the interval between the terms transposed, we may now obtain more and more specialised types of comic transpositions. Thus, certain professions have a technical vocabulary: what a wealth of laughable results have been obtained by transposing the ideas of everyday life into this professional jargon! Equally comic is the extension of business phraseology to the social relations of life,--for instance, the phrase of one of Labiche's characters in allusion to an invitation he has received, "Your kindness of the third ult.," thus transposing the commercial formula, "Your favour of the third instant." This class of the comic, moreover, may attain a special profundity of its own when it discloses not merely a professional practice, but a fault in character. Recall to mind the scenes in the Faux Bonshommes and the Famille Benoiton, where marriage is dealt with as a business affair, and matters of sentiment are set down in strictly commercial language. Here, however, we reach the point at which peculiarities of language really express peculiarities of character, a closer investigation of which we must hold over to the next chapter. Thus, as might have been expected and may be seen from the foregoing, the comic in words follows closely on the comic in situation and is finally merged, along with the latter, in the comic in character. Language only attains laughable results because it is a human product, modelled as exactly as possible on the forms of the human mind. We feel it contains some living element of our own life; and if this life of language were complete and perfect, if there were nothing stereotype in it, if, in short, language were an absolutely unified organism incapable of being split up into independent organisms, it would evade the comic as would a soul whose life was one harmonious whole, unruffled as the calm surface of a peaceful lake. There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others, no language, in short, so subtle and instinct with life, so fully alert in each of its parts as to eliminate the ready-made and oppose the mechanical operations of inversion, transposition, etc., which one would fain perform upon it as on some lifeless thing. The rigid, the ready-- made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing and the living, absentmindedness in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects that laughter singles out and would fain correct. We appealed to this idea to give us light at the outset, when starting upon the analysis of the ludicrous. We have seen it shining at every decisive turning in our road. With its help, we shall now enter upon a more important investigation, one that will, we hope, be more instructive. We purpose, in short, studying comic characters, or rather determining the essential conditions of comedy in character, while endeavouring to bring it about that this study may contribute to a better understanding of the real nature of art and the general relation between art and life. Continue... Preface o I o II o III o IV o V o I o II o I o II o III o IV o V o o This complete text of "Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic" by Henri Bergson is in the public domain. Interested to get the book? Try Amazon. This page has been created by Philipp Lenssen. Page last updated on April 2003. Complete book. Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About... [Buy at Amazon] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) (Deluxe Edition) By J. K. 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(November 2011) George Carlin Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008 Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S. Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio Nationality American Years active 1956–2008 Genres Character comedy, observational comedy, Insult comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, Anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family Influences Danny Kaye,^[1]^[2] Jonathan Winters,^[2] Lenny Bruce,^[3]^[4] Richard Pryor,^[5] Jerry Lewis,^[2]^[5] Marx Brothers,^[2]^[5] Mort Sahl,^[4] Spike Jones,^[5] Ernie Kovacs,^[5] Ritz Brothers^[2] Monty Python^[5] Influenced Chris Rock,^[6] Jerry Seinfeld,^[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,^[8] Bill Cosby,^[9] Lewis Black,^[10] Jon Stewart,^[11] Stephen Colbert,^[12] Bill Maher,^[13] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,^[14] Adam Carolla,^[15] Colin Quinn,^[16] Steven Wright,^[17] Mitch Hedberg,^[18] Russell Peters,^[19] Jay Leno,^[20] Ben Stiller,^[20] Kevin Smith^[21] Spouse Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)^[22] Notable works and roles Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station Narrator in Thomas and Friends HBO television specials George O'Grady in The George Carlin Show Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Signature George Carlin Signature.svg Website www.georgecarlin.com Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous] Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001 George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[23] Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[24] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Contents * 1 Early life * 2 Career + 2.1 1960s + 2.2 1970s + 2.3 1980s and 1990s + 2.4 2000s * 3 Personal life * 4 Religion * 5 Themes * 6 Death and legacy * 7 Works + 7.1 Discography + 7.2 Filmography + 7.3 Television + 7.4 HBO specials + 7.5 Bibliography + 7.6 Audiobooks * 8 Internet hoaxes * 9 References * 10 External links [edit] Early life Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[25]^[26] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[27] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[28]^[29]^[30] Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[31] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[32]^[33] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[34] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana. During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. [edit] Career In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits. [edit] 1960s Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36] In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were: * The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line") * Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'" * Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." * Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known" Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38] Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich. During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40] Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41] [edit] 1970s Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43] “ Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war. ” —George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words." It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience. Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series. Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. [edit] 1980s and 1990s In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials. In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46] In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47] In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.^[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart. In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character. [edit] 2000s In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[48] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[48] For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating: People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects. An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[49]^[50] He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[51] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals. On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back." Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film. Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[52] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country. [edit] Personal life In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963.^[53] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997. Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[54] Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[55] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[56] [edit] Religion Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[57] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. [edit] Themes Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show: I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse. Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies. Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[58] among many others. George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008 Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!" In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one." Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey. [edit] Death and legacy Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[59] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[60] On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[61] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[22]^[62]^[63] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[64]^[65] In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[66]^[67]^[68] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick. On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[69] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[70] Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[71] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[72] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho. Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him. For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[73] The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[74] The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[75] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[76] In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[77] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[78] [edit] Works [edit] Discography Main * 1963: Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight * 1967: Take-Offs and Put-Ons * 1972: FM & AM * 1972: Class Clown * 1973: Occupation: Foole * 1974: Toledo Window Box * 1975: An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo * 1977: On the Road * 1981: A Place for My Stuff * 1984: Carlin on Campus * 1986: Playin' with Your Head * 1988: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? * 1990: Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics * 1992: Jammin' in New York * 1996: Back in Town * 1999: You Are All Diseased * 2001: Complaints and Grievances * 2006: Life Is Worth Losing * 2008: It's Bad for Ya Compilations * 1978: Indecent Exposure: Some of the Best of George Carlin * 1984: The George Carlin Collection * 1992: Classic Gold * 1999: The Little David Years (1971-1977) * 2002: George Carlin on Comedy [edit] Filmography Year Movie Role 1968 With Six You Get Eggroll Herbie Fleck 1976 Car Wash Taxi Driver 1979 Americathon Narrator 1987 Outrageous Fortune Frank Madras 1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Rufus 1990 Working Trash Ralph 1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Rufus The Prince of Tides Eddie Detreville 1999 Dogma Cardinal Ignatius Glick 2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Hitchhiker 2003 Scary Movie 3 Architect 2004 Jersey Girl Bart Trinké 2005 Tarzan II Zugor (voice) The Aristocrats Himself 2006 Cars Fillmore (voice) Mater and the Ghostlight 2007 Happily N'Ever After Wizard (voice) [edit] Television * The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966) * That Girl (Guest appearance) (1966) * The Ed Sullivan Show (multiple appearances) * The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (season 3 guest appearance) (1968) * What's My Line? (Guest Appearance) (1969) * The Flip Wilson Show (writer, performer) (1971–1973) * The Mike Douglas Show (Guest) (February 18, 1972) * Saturday Night Live (Host, episodes 1 and 183) (1975 & 1984) * Justin Case (as Justin Case) (1988) TV movie directed Blake Edwards * Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (as American Narrator) (1991–1998) * Shining Time Station (as Mr. Conductor) (1991–1993) * The George Carlin Show (as George O'Grady) (1994-1995) Fox * Streets of Laredo (as Billy Williams) (1995) * The Simpsons (as Munchie, episode 209) (1998) * Caillou (1998-2008) (Caillou's Grandpa) * The Daily Show (guest on February 1, 1999; December 16, 1999; and March 10, 2004) * MADtv (Guest appearance in episodes 518 & 524) (2000) * Inside the Actors Studio (2004) * Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (as Fillmore) (archive footage) (2008) * In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs." [edit] HBO specials Special Year Notes On Location: George Carlin at USC 1977 George Carlin: Again! 1978 Carlin at Carnegie 1982 Carlin on Campus 1984 Playin' with Your Head 1986 What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988 Doin' It Again 1990 Jammin' in New York 1992 Back in Town 1996 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997 You Are All Diseased 1999 Complaints and Grievances 2001 Life Is Worth Losing 2005 All My Stuff 2007 A boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy). It's Bad for Ya 2008 [edit] Bibliography Book Year Notes Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3^[79] Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9^[80] Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3^[81] When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7^[82] Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6^[83] A collection of the 3 previous titles. Watch My Language 2009 ISBN 0-7868-8838-5^[84]^[85] Posthumous release (not yet released). Last Words 2009 ISBN 1-4391-7295-1^[86] Posthumous release. [edit] Audiobooks * Brain Droppings * Napalm and Silly Putty * More Napalm & Silly Putty * George Carlin Reads to You * When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? [edit] Internet hoaxes Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rantlike and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds on the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite to Carlin's viewpoints, with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing: "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website," and that "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]^[91]^[92] [edit] References Portal icon biography portal 1. ^ Murray, Noel (November 2, 2005). "Interviews: George Carlin". The A.V. Club (The Onion). http://www.avclub.com/content/node/42195. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 2. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Merrill, Sam (January 1982). "Playboy Interview: George Carlin". Playboy 3. ^ Carlin, George (November 1, 2004). "Comedian and Actor George Carlin". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 4. ^ ^a ^b Carlin, George, George Carlin on Comedy, "Lenny Bruce", Laugh.com, 2002 5. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "George Carlin". Inside the Actors Studio. Bravo TV. 2004-10-31. No. 4, season 1. 6. ^ Rock, Chris (2008-07-03). "Chris Rock Salutes George Carlin". EW.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20210534,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-04. 7. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2007-04-01). Jerry Seinfeld: The Comedian Award (TV). HBO. 8. ^ C.K., Louis (2008-06-22). "Goodbye George Carlin". LouisCK.net. http://www.louisck.net/2008/06/goodbye-george-carlin.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 9. ^ Welkos, Robert W. (2007-07-24). "Funny, that was my joke". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/entertainment/et-joketheft2 4. Retrieved 2011-09-02. 10. ^ Gillette, Amelie (2006-06-07). "Lewis Black". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://origin.avclub.com/content/node/49217. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 11. ^ Stewart, Jon (1997-02-27). George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy (TV). HBO. 12. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-01-25). "Stephen Colbert". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved 2006-06-23. 13. ^ "episode 38". Real Time with Bill Maher. HBO. 2004-10-01. No. 18, season 2. 14. ^ "Comedians: Patrice O'Neal". Comedy Central. 2008-10-30. http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/o/patrice_oneal.jhtml . Retrieved 2009-07-30. 15. ^ "2007 October « The Official Adam Carolla Show Blog". Adamradio.wordpress.com. http://adamradio.wordpress.com/2007/10/. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 16. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2003-06-18). "Colin Quinn". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22529. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 17. ^ Rabin, Nathan (2006-11-09). "Steven Wright". The A.V. Club. The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/54975. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 18. ^ Jeffries, David (unspecified). "Mitch Hedberg". Biography. Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/mitch-hedberg-p602821. Retrieved 2011-04-14. 19. ^ Alan Cho, Gauntlet Entertainment (2005-11-24). "Gauntlet Entertainment — Comedy Preview: Russell Peters won't a hurt you real bad - 2005-11-24". Gauntlet.ucalgary.ca. http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/a/story/9549. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 20. ^ ^a ^b Breuer, Howard, and Stephen M, Silverman (2008-06-24). "Carlin Remembered: He Helped Other Comics with Drug Problems". People. Time Inc.. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,20208460,00.html?xid=rss-ful lcontentcnn. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 21. ^ Smith, Kevin (2008-06-23). "‘A God Who Cussed’". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975/page/1. Retrieved 2008-07-27. 22. ^ ^a ^b Entertainment Tonight. George Carlin Has Died 23. ^ "Comedian George Carlin wins posthumous Grammy". Reuters. February 8, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE5171UA20090 208. Retrieved 2009-02-08. 24. ^ "Stand Up Comedy & Comedians". Comedy Zone. http://www.comedy-zone.net/standup/comedian/index.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-10. 25. ^ Carlin, George (2001-11-17). Complaints and Grievances (TV). HBO. 26. ^ Carlin, George (2009-11-10). "The Old Man and the Sunbeam". Last Words. New York: Free Press. p. 6. ISBN 1439172951. "Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this planet was to vomit." 27. ^ "George Carlin Biography (1937-)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/George-Carlin.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 28. ^ Carlin, George (2008-03-01). It's Bad for Ya! (TV). HBO. 29. ^ Class Clown, "I Used to Be Irish Catholic", 1972, Little David Records. 30. ^ "George Carlin knows what's 'Bad for Ya'". Associated Press. CNN.com. 2008-02-28. http://m.cnn.com/cnn/archive/archive/detail/80004/full. Retrieved 2008-05-24. 31. ^ Psychology Today: George Carlin's last interview. Retrieved August 13, 2008. 32. ^ "George Carlin: Early Years", George Carlin website (georgecarlin.com) 33. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt, "‘Carlin Street’ Resisted by His Old Church. Was It Something He Said?", The New York Times, October 25, 2011 34. ^ Gonzalez, David. He also briefly attended the Salesian High School in Goshen, NY.George Carlin Didn’t Shun School That Ejected Him. The New York Times. June 24, 2008. 35. ^ "Texas Radio Hall of Fame: George Carlin". http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/georgecarlin.html. 36. ^ ^a ^b "Timeline - 1960s". George Carlin Biography. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3B.html. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 37. ^ "Biographical information for George Carlin". Kennedy Center. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showInd ividual&entity_id=19830&source_type=A. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 38. ^ "George Carlin's official site (see Timeline) . Retrieved August 14, 2006". Georgecarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/home.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 39. ^ "Away We Go". IMDB. 1967. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061235/. Retrieved 12 October 2011. 40. ^ ABC World News Tonight; June 23, 2008. 41. ^ "Profanity". Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Showtime. 2004-08-12. No. 10, season 2. 42. ^ Jim Stingl (June 30, 2007). "Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070929124942/http://www.jsonline.com/s tory/index.aspx?id=626471. Retrieved 2008-03-23. 43. ^ "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. July 3, 1978. http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decisio n. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 44. ^ "BBS". George Carlin. http://www.georgecarlin.com/dirty/2443.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 45. ^ "Saturday Night Live". Geoffrey Hammill, The Museum of Broadcast Communications. no date. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/saturdaynigh/saturdaynigh .htm. Retrieved May 17, 2007. 46. ^ "1990-1999". GeorgeCarlin.com. http://www.georgecarlin.com/time/time3E.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 47. ^ Last Words', Simon & Schuster, 2009' 48. ^ ^a ^b Library of Congress. Bill Summary & Status 108th Congress (2003 - 2004) H.R.3687. THOMAS website. Retrieved July 20, 2008. 49. ^ "reviewjournal.com". reviewjournal.com. 2004-12-04. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-04-Sat-2004/news/25 407915.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 50. ^ "George Carlin enters rehab". CNN.com. 2004-12-29. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-27/entertainment/george.carlin_1_re hab-jeff-abraham-pork-chops?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ. Retrieved 2010-11-12. 51. ^ "Carlin: Life is Worth Losing". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/events/gcarlin/?ntrack_para1=insidehbo3_text. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 52. ^ Wloszczyna, Susan (2007-09-24). "George Carlin reflects on 50 years (or so) of 'All My Stuff'". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2007-09-24-carlin-collectio n_N.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-08. 53. ^ Carlin, George; Tony Hendra (2009). Last Words. Free Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 9781439172957. 54. ^ George Carlin's Loved Ones Speak Out. Entertainment Tonight. 2008-06-23. Archived from the original on June 25, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080625032232/http://www.etonline.com/n ews/2008/06/62841/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23 55. ^ April 06, 2008 (2008-04-06). "1:37". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOWe4-KXqMM. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 56. ^ "George Carlin.". http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/george-carlin.html. 57. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o 58. ^ "Abortion" in the HBO Special Back in Town 59. ^ Carlin, G. (2009). Last words. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 75-76. 60. ^ George Carlin enters rehab. CNN. 2004-12-29. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/12/27/george.carlin/index .html. Retrieved 2008-01-19 61. ^ Watkins M and Weber B (June 24, 2008). George Carlin, Comic Who Chafed at Society and Its Constraints, Dies at 71. NY Times archive Retrieved March 6, 2011 62. ^ ETonline.com. George Carlin has died 63. ^ "Grammy-Winning Comedian, Counter-Culture Figure George Carlin Dies at 71". Foxnews.com. 2008-06-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370121,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 64. ^ George gets the last word Retrieved on June 28, 2008 65. ^ "Private services for Carlin". Dailynews.com. http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9708481. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 66. ^ HBO,'SNL' to replay classic Carlin this week Retrieved on June 24, 2008 67. ^ George Carlin Televised Retrieved on June 23, 2008 68. ^ HBO schedule Retrieved on June 27, 2008 69. ^ Seinfeld, Jerry (2008-06-24). Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-08-09 70. ^ Doonesbury comic strip, 27 July 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2010. 71. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline; "Bleep! Bleep! George Carlin To Receive Mark Twain Humor Prize"; washingtonpost.com; June 18, 2008 72. ^ "George Carlin becomes first posthumous Mark Twain honoree". Reuters. June 23, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2328397920080623?feedTy pe=RSS&feedName=topNews. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 73. ^ Deahl, Rachel (July 14, 2009). "Free Press Acquires Posthumous Carlin Memoir". Publishers Weekly. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6670970.html 74. ^ "New York Boy". Amazon.ca. http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0786888385%3FSubscriptionId%3D1NNRF7QZ418V2 18YP1R2%26tag%3Dbf-ns-author-lp-1-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025 %26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0786888385. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 75. ^ Wade, Sally (March 8, 2011). The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade. Gallery. ISBN 1451607768. 76. ^ LA Weekly 77. ^ USA Today "Daughter to shed light on Carlin's life and stuff. Wloszczyna, Susan. November 4, 2008. 78. ^ Kelly Carlin-McCall (December 30, 2009). Comedy Land Retrieved March 14, 2011. 79. ^ Carlin, George (1984). Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0894712713. 80. ^ Carlin, George (1998). Brain Droppings. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786883219. 81. ^ Carlin, George (2001). Napalm & Silly Putty. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786887583. 82. ^ Carlin, George (2004). When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1401301347. 83. ^ Carlin, George (2006). Three Times Carlin. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 9781401302436. 84. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Watch My Language. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786888385. 85. ^ "Watch My Language". BookFinder.com. http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=EhPZdhW,SwMerM5tkc E9WhmSc0w_2967720197_1:134:839&bq=author%3Dgeorge%2520carlin%26titl e%3Dwatch%2520my%2520language. Retrieved October 9, 2010. 86. ^ Carlin, George (2009). Last Words. New York: Free Press. ISBN 1439172951. 87. ^ Barbara Mikkelson. "George Carlin on Aging" snopes.com; June 27, 2008 88. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson. "The Paradox of Our Time" snopes.com; November 1, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/paradox.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 89. ^ ""The Bad American" snopes.com; October 2, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 90. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Hurricane Rules" snopes.com; October 23, 2005". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/carlin.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 91. ^ "Barbara Mikkelson "Gas Crisis Solution" snopes.com; February 5, 2007". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/carlingas.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 92. ^ ""New Rules for 2006" January 12, 2006". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/newrules.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Carlin Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Carlin * Official website * George Carlin at the Internet Movie Database * Appearances on C-SPAN * George Carlin on Charlie Rose * Works by or about George Carlin in libraries (WorldCat catalog) * George Carlin collected news and commentary at The New York Times * George Carlin at Find a Grave * George Carlin at the Rotten Library * Interview at Archive of American Television * v * d * e George Carlin Albums Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight · Take-Offs and Put-Ons · FM & AM · Class Clown · Occupation: Foole · Toledo Window Box · An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo · On the Road · Killer Carlin · A Place for My Stuff · Carlin on Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · George Carlin on Comedy · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Compilations Indecent Exposure · Classic Gold · The Little David Years (1971–1977) HBO specials On Location · Again! · At Carnegie · On Campus · Playin' with Your Head · What Am I Doing in New Jersey? · Doin' It Again · Jammin' in New York · Back in Town · 40 Years of Comedy · You Are All Diseased · Complaints and Grievances · Life Is Worth Losing · It's Bad for Ya Books Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help · Brain Droppings · Napalm and Silly Putty · When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? · Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George · Last Words · Watch My Language Related articles The George Carlin Show · "D'oh-in in the Wind" · Shining Time Station · Thomas & Friends * v * d * e Mark Twain Prize winners Richard Pryor (1998) · Jonathan Winters (1999) · Carl Reiner (2000) · Whoopi Goldberg (2001) · Bob Newhart (2002) · Lily Tomlin (2003) · Lorne Michaels (2004) · Steve Martin (2005) · Neil Simon (2006) · Billy Crystal (2007) · George Carlin (2008) · Bill Cosby (2009) · Tina Fey (2010) · Will Ferrell (2011) Persondata Name Carlin, George Alternative names Carlin, George Denis Patrick Short description Comedian, actor, writer Date of birth May 12, 1937 Place of birth Manhattan Date of death June 22, 2008 Place of death Santa Monica, California Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Carlin&oldid=47478557 8" Categories: * 1937 births * 2008 deaths * Actors from New York City * Writers from New York City * American film actors * American humorists * American political writers * American social commentators * American stand-up comedians * American voice actors * American television actors * Censorship in the arts * Deaths from heart failure * Disease-related deaths in California * Former Roman Catholics * Free speech activists * Grammy Award winners * American comedians of Irish descent * American writers of Irish descent * Mark Twain Prize recipients * Obscenity controversies * People from Manhattan * People self-identifying as alcoholics * Actors from California * Writers from California * United States Air Force airmen Hidden categories: * Articles needing additional references from November 2011 * All articles needing additional references * All articles with unsourced statements * Articles with unsourced statements from June 2008 Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * العربية * Български * Cymraeg * Dansk * Deutsch * Español * فارسی * Français * Galego * 한국어 * हिन्दी * Bahasa Indonesia * Íslenska * Italiano * עברית * ಕನ್ನಡ * Latina * Lëtzebuergesch * Nederlands * 日本語 * ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬ * Polski * Português * Română * Русский * Simple English * Slovenčina * Српски / Srpski * Suomi * Svenska * తెలుగు * Türkçe * Українська * اردو * Yorùbá * 中文 * This page was last modified on 3 February 2012 at 13:56. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki #next Advertisement IFRAME: /lat-nav.php?c=4676092&p=LATArticles&t=ap-LA10-G02&s=entertainment%2Fne ws&e=true&cu=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.latimes.com%2F2007%2Fjul%2F24%2Fente rtainment%2Fet-joketheft24&n=id%3Dlogo%26float%3Dleft%26default-nav-ski n%3Dfull%26none-logo-src%3D%2Fpm-imgs%2Fheader.gif%26none-logo-title%3D Los+Angeles+Times+Articles%26none-logo-alt%3DLos+Angeles+Times+Articles %26none-logo-width%3D980%26none-logo-height%3D40%26none-logo-href%3Dhtt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%26full-logo-width%3D980%26full-logo-height%3D 202%26name%3DNav YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home->Collections->Comedians Funny, that was my joke COLUMN ONE It's no laughing matter when comedians feel someone has stolen their stuff. A generation ago it was rare, but the old code is breaking down. July 24, 2007|Robert W. Welkos | Times Staff Writer SO, these comedians walk into a comedy club, and a nasty dispute breaks out over who is stealing jokes. The audience laughs, but the comedians don't seem to find it funny at all. The scene was the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip earlier this year, and on stage were Carlos Mencia, host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia," and stand-up comic and "Fear Factor" host Joe Rogan. Mencia let it be known he was upset that Rogan had been mercilessly bashing him as a "joke thief" and derisively referring to him as Carlos "Menstealia." As the crowd whooped and hollered, Mencia fired back at Rogan: "Here's what I think. I think that every time you open your mouth and talk about me, I think you're secretly in love with me...." A video of the raucous encounter soon appeared on various websites, igniting a debate over joke thievery that is roiling the world of stand-up comedy. An earlier generation of comics was self-policing, careful about giving credit, often adhering to an unwritten code: Any comic who stole another's material faced being shunned by his peers. Now, though, the competition is so much greater and the comedy world so decentralized that old taboos about joke theft seem to be breaking down. That, in turn, has led to an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism. Still, for a comic convinced that his material has been ripped off, it's no laughing matter. "You have a better chance of stopping a serial killer than a serial thief in comedy," said comedian David Brenner. "If we could protect our jokes, I'd be a retired billionaire in Europe somewhere -- and what I just said is original." Bill Cosby, who has had his own material ripped off over the years, said he empathizes with comedians who are being victimized by joke thievery. "You're watching a guy do your material and people are laughing, but they're laughing because they think this performer has a brilliant mind and he's a funny person," Cosby said. "The person doing the stealing is accepting this under false pretenses." BOBBY Kelton, a veteran of stand-up who appeared nearly two dozen times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," said that when he started out in the business, fellow comics such as Jay Leno, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis all knew the rules. "No one dared use another's material," Kelton said. "If they did, the word would get out and you'd be ostracized.... Then, as the comedy boom hit and tens of thousands of people got into comedy, that all kind of went out the window." To be sure, joke theft went on even during those golden years. The late Milton Berle was famous for pilfering other comedian's jokes. "His mother used to go around and write down jokes and give it to him," recalled Carl Reiner. "He was called 'The Thief of Bad Gags.' " Reiner said that in those days, comedians would work on different club circuits, so it was possible that they didn't know when someone was stealing their routines. Today, however, websites like YouTube post videos comparing the routines of various comedians, inviting the public to judge for themselves. One example is a comparison of three comedy bits on Dane Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation" and three similar routines on Louis C.K.'s 2001 CD "Live in Houston." Louis C.K. jokes: "I'd like to give my kid an interesting name. Like a name with no vowels ... just like 40 Fs, that's his name." Now compare that to Dane Cook's material: "I'd like to have 19 kids. I think naming them, that's going to be fun.... I already have names picked out. First kid -- boy, girl, I don't care -- I'm naming it \o7'Rrrrrrrrrrrr.' " \f7And both scenes might seem familiar to fans of Steve Martin, who did a bit decades earlier called "My Real Name," in which he uses gibberish when recalling the name his folks gave him. "Does this mean Louis C.K. and Dane Cook stole from Steve Martin?" Todd Jackson, a former managing editor at the humor magazine Cracked, writes on his comedy blog, www.dead-frog.com. "Absolutely not. This is a joke that doesn't belong to anyone. It's going to be discovered and rediscovered again and again by comics -- each of whom will put their own spin on it." Radar magazine, in a recent article about joke thievery among comics, called Robin Williams a "notorious joke rustler" who is known to cut checks to comedians after stealing their material. Jamie Masada, who runs the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, likened Williams' act to a jazz player. "He goes with whatever comes in his mind. That is what he is. He doesn't go sit down and write what he is going to say on the stage." If he learns later that he has used someone else's material, Masada added, "he goes back afterward and says, 'Here is the check.' " Williams declined to comment for this article. 1 | 2 | 3 | Next EmailPrintDiggTwitterFacebookStumbleUponShare FEATURED [66617344.jpg] Taking the bang out of pressure cooking [66088592.jpg] Russians are leaving the country in droves [67158235.jpg] 2012 Honda CR-V sports all-new looks inside and out MORE: Israel's profound choice on Iran Study works out kinks in understanding of massage Advertisement FROM THE ARCHIVES * No Laughing Matter January 23, 2005 * No Laughing Matter March 1, 2004 * No Laughing Matter October 17, 2002 * This Was No Laughing Matter March 19, 1995 MORE STORIES ABOUT * Comedians * Intellectual Property * Comedians . Los Angeles Times Articles Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Index by Date | Index by Keyword IFRAME: g5name IFRAME: about:blank Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email On this page Library * Animal Life * Business & Finance * Cars & Vehicles * Entertainment & Arts * Food & Cooking * Health * History, Politics, Society * Home & Garden * Law & Legal Issues * Literature & Language * Miscellaneous * Religion & Spirituality * Science * Sports * Technology * Travel & Places * Q & A Answers.com IFRAME: emailWindowFrame1 joke American Heritage Dictionary: joke Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary (jÅk) pronunciation n. 1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line. 2. A mischievous trick; a prank. 3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation. 4. Informal. a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke. b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office. v., joked, jok·ing, jokes. v.intr. 1. To tell or play jokes; jest. 2. To speak in fun; be facetious. v.tr. To make fun of; tease. [Latin iocus.] jokingly jok'ing·ly adv. SYNONYMS joke, jest, witticism, quip, sally, crack, wisecrack, gag. These nouns refer to something that is said or done in order to evoke laughter or amusement. Joke especially denotes an amusing story with a punch line at the end: told jokes at the party. Jest suggests frolicsome humor: amusing jests that defused the tense situation. A witticism is a witty, usually cleverly phrased remark: a speech full of witticisms. A quip is a clever, pointed, often sarcastic remark: responded to the tough questions with quips. Sally denotes a sudden quick witticism: ended the debate with a brilliant sally. Crack and wisecrack refer less formally to flippant or sarcastic retorts: made a crack about my driving ability; punished for making wisecracks in class. Gag is principally applicable to a broadly comic remark or to comic by-play in a theatrical routine: one of the most memorable gags in the history of vaudeville. Home of Wiki & Reference Answers, the worldâs leading Q&A site Reference Answers English▼ English▼ Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog * * Search unanswered questions... _______________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | Most-recent questions | Reference library Enter a question here... Search: ( ) All sources (*) Community Q&A ( ) Reference topics joke___________________________________________________________________ [blank.gif?v=fa2f87e]-Submit * Browse: Unanswered questions | New questions | New answers | Reference library Related Videos: joke Top [516962599_22.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler Joke Around [284851538_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Julie Bowen jokes about Scarlett [284040716_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play Miley Cyrus Jokes with the Paps [516996347_3.jpg] [btn_play_small.png] Click to Play SNTV - Amanda Seyfried Loves Dirty Jokes and Kissing View more Entertainment & Arts videos Roget's Thesaurus: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Thesaurus noun 1. Words or actions intended to excite laughter or amusement: gag, jape, jest, quip, witticism. Informal funny, gag. Slang ha-ha. See laughter. 2. A mischievous act: antic, caper, frolic, lark, prank^1, trick. Informal shenanigan. Slang monkeyshine (often used in plural). See good/bad, work/play. 3. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: absurdity. Informal hoot, laugh, scream. Slang gas, howl, panic, riot. Idioms: a laugh a minute. See laughter. 4. An object of amusement or laughter: butt^3, jest, laughingstock, mockery. See respect/contempt/standing. verb 1. To make jokes; behave playfully: jest. Informal clown (around), fool around, fun. See laughter. 2. To tease or mock good-humoredly: banter, chaff, josh. Informal kid, rib, ride. Slang jive, rag^2, razz. See laughter. Antonyms by Answers.com: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Antonyms v Definition: kid, tease Antonyms: be serious Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Music Encyclopedia Name sometimes given to Haydn's String Quartet in Eâ op.33 no. 2 (1781), on account of the ending of the finale, where Haydn teases the listener's expectation with rests and recurring phrases. Mozart wrote a parodistic Musical Joke (Ein musikalischer Spass k 522, 1787) for strings and horns. __________________________________________________________________ Word Tutor: jokingly Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Tutor pronunciation IN BRIEF: adv. - Not seriously; In jest. LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results! Sign Language Videos: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Sign Language Videos sign description: Both hands are X-handshapes. One brushes across the top of the other in a repeated movement. __________________________________________________________________ The Dream Encyclopedia: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Dream Symbols Humor in a dream is a good indication of lightheartedness and release from the tension that may have surrounded some issue. There is, however, also a negative side of humor, such as when someone or something is derided as "a joke." __________________________________________________________________ Random House Word Menu: categories related to 'joke' Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Word Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to joke, see: * Expressions of Feeling - joke: make humorous remarks; poke fun at; make light of; jape; jest * Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles * Pranks and Tricks - joke: (vb) toy playfully with someone __________________________________________________________________ Rhymes: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Rhymes See words rhyming with "joke." Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary: joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Crossword Clues [icon-crosswrd.png] See crossword solutions for the clue Joke. Wikipedia on Answers.com: Joke Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humor * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links This article's tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2011) A joke (or gag) is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished... * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewuÃten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchlineâthe anti-climax. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humor In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[27] * The "Blonde joke" cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^[citation needed] For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one Iâd be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^[citation needed] Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^[citation needed] Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series. Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries. Styles The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humour * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humour * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Practical jokes * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * Stand-up comedy * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ^ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ^ Adams, Stephen (July 31, 2008). "The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html. 3. ^ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ^ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ^ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ^ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ^ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ^ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ^ ^a ^b Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371â374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ^ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. p. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ^ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ^ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69â71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ^ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441â448. doi:10.2307/539874. JSTOR 539874. 14. ^ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49â63. doi:10.2307/1500468. JSTOR 1500468. 15. ^ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261â277. doi:10.2307/1499821. JSTOR 1499821. 16. ^ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243â260. doi:10.2307/1499820. JSTOR 1499820. 17. ^ Elliott Oring (July â September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276â286. doi:10.2307/540324. JSTOR 540324. 18. ^ Laszlo Kurti (July â September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324â334. doi:10.2307/540473. JSTOR 540473. 19. ^ Alan Dundes (April â June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219â222. doi:10.2307/539390. JSTOR 539390. 20. ^ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186â189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ^ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145â157. doi:10.2307/1499238. JSTOR 1499238. 22. ^ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ^ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ^ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186â203. doi:10.2307/538989. JSTOR 538989. 25. ^ Alan Dundes, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. p. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ^ Alan Dundes (October â December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456â475. doi:10.2307/540367. JSTOR 540367. 27. ^ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107â110. doi:10.2307/1498259. JSTOR 1498259. 28. ^ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142â143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ^ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161â162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. * Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2] External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project â An active listing of links to jokes. This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer) Donate to Wikimedia Translations: Joke Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > Translations Dansk (Danish) n. - vittighed, vits, spøg, spøgefuldhed v. intr. - sige vittigheder, spøge med v. tr. - drille, spøge med idioms: * beyond a joke nu er det ikke morsomt længere, nu gÃ¥r det for vidt * cannot take a joke kan ikke tage en spøg, kan ikke klare at blive drillet * joking apart spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * joking aside spøg til side, bortset fra det, tilbage til emnet * make a joke of lave grin med, holde for nar * no joke ingen spøg, det er ikke sjovt * the joke is on det gÃ¥r ud over * you must be joking du tager gas pÃ¥ mig, det er ikke sandt Nederlands (Dutch) grap, belachelijk iets/ iemand, schertsvertoning, grappen maken, plagen Français (French) n. - plaisanterie, blague, tour, farce, risée v. intr. - plaisanter, blaguer v. tr. - plaisanter, blaguer idioms: * beyond a joke la plaisanterie a assez duré * cannot take a joke ne pas comprendre la plaisanterie * joking apart plaisanterie mise à part, sérieusement, sans plaisanter * joking aside toute plaisanterie mise à part * make a joke of tourner qch à la plaisanterie * no joke ce n'est pas une petite affaire, ce n'est pas drôle/rigolo * the joke is on la plaisanterie se retourne contre (qn) * you must be joking vous plaisantez (excl) Deutsch (German) n. - Witz, Scherz v. - scherzen, Witze machen idioms: * beyond a joke da hört der Spaà auf * cannot take a joke versteht keinen Spaà * joking apart Scherz beiseite, Spaà beiseite * joking aside Scherz beiseite * make a joke of über etwas (ernstes) lachen * no joke nicht zum Lachen * the joke is on jmd. ist der Narr * you must be joking das soll wohl ein Witz sein! Îλληνική (Greek) n. - ανÎκδοÏο, αÏÏείο, καλαμÏοÏÏι, ÏÏÏαÏÏ v. - αÏÏειεÏομαι, ÏÏÏαÏεÏÏ idioms: * beyond a joke ÏÎ¿Ï Î¾ÎµÏεÏνάει Ïα ÏÏια ÏÎ¿Ï Î±ÏÏÎµÎ¯Î¿Ï * cannot take a joke δεν ÏηκÏÎ½Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking apart ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * joking aside ÏÏÏÎ¯Ï Î±ÏÏεία * make a joke of γελοιοÏÎ¿Î¹Ï * no joke ÏοβαÏή ÏÏÏθεÏη * the joke is on η ÏÏÏθεÏη ÏÏÏÎÏεÏαι ÎµÎ¹Ï Î²Î¬ÏÎ¿Ï ÏÎ¿Ï * you must be joking θα αÏÏειεÏεÏαι βÎβαια Italiano (Italian) scherzare, barzelletta, scherzo, brutto scherzo, commedia idioms: * beyond a joke al di là del gioco, affare più serio di quel che si pensava * cannot take a joke essere permaloso * joking apart/aside scherzi a parte * make a joke of prendere in giro * no joke seriamente * the joke is on chi passa per stupido é * you must be joking stai scherzando Português (Portuguese) n. - piada (f), brincadeira (f) v. - contar piada, brincar idioms: * beyond a joke situação (f) séria ou preocupante * cannot take a joke não aceita brincadeiras * joking apart/aside deixando as brincadeiras de lado * make a joke of caçoar de * no joke sério, sem brincadeira * the joke is on o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro (fig.) * you must be joking você deve estar brincando Ð ÑÑÑкий (Russian) анекдоÑ, ÑÑÑка, обÑÐµÐºÑ ÑÑÑок, пÑÑÑÑк, ÑÑÑиÑÑ, дÑазниÑÑ idioms: * beyond a joke ÑеÑÑÐµÐ·Ð½Ð°Ñ ÑиÑÑаÑÐ¸Ñ * cannot take a joke не понимаÑÑ ÑÑÑок * joking apart/aside ÑÑÑки в ÑÑоÑÐ¾Ð½Ñ * make a joke of ÑвеÑÑи к ÑÑÑке, обÑаÑиÑÑ Ð² ÑÑÑÐºÑ * no joke не ÑÑÑка, дело ÑеÑÑезное * the joke is on оÑÑаÑÑÑÑ Ð² дÑÑÐ°ÐºÐ°Ñ * you must be joking "ÐадеÑÑÑ, Ð²Ñ ÑÑÑиÑе" Español (Spanish) n. - broma, chanza, burla, chiste, tomada de pelo, broma pesada, hazmerreÃr, comedia, farsa v. intr. - bromear, chancearse v. tr. - embromar, chasquear, gastar bromas a (alguien) idioms: * beyond a joke pasar de castaño oscuro * cannot take a joke no sabe tomar las bromas * joking apart hablando en serio, bromas aparte * joking aside hablando en serio, bromas aparte * make a joke of hacer un chiste de * no joke no es broma * the joke is on la vÃctima de la broma es * you must be joking ¡no hablarás en serio!, ¡ni loco que estuviera! Svenska (Swedish) n. - skämt, kvickhet, skoj v. - skämta, skoja, skämta med, skoja med ä¸æï¼ç®ä½ï¼(Chinese (Simplified)) ç¬è¯, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬, å¼ç©ç¬, å¼...çç©ç¬, æå¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬å¼å¾å¤ªè¿ç« * cannot take a joke ç»ä¸èµ·å¼ç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨å½æ£ä¼ * joking aside 说æ£ç»ç * make a joke of å¼...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¹çç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥ä¸ºèªå·±èªæçå¼ä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å被æå¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ åºè¯¥æ¯å¼ç©ç¬çå§ ä¸æï¼ç¹é«ï¼(Chinese (Traditional)) n. - ç¬è©±, ç¬æ, ç©ç¬ v. intr. - éç©ç¬ v. tr. - é...çç©ç¬, æ²å¼ idioms: * beyond a joke ç©ç¬éå¾å¤ªéç« * cannot take a joke ç¶ä¸èµ·éç©ç¬ * joking apart è¨æ¸æ£å³ * joking aside 說æ£ç¶ç * make a joke of é...çç©ç¬ * no joke ä¸æ¯é¬§èç©ç * the joke is on å¨ä»¥çºèªå·±è°æçéä»äººç©ç¬ä¹å¾è¢«æ²å¼çåèæ¯èªå·± * you must be joking ä½ æ該æ¯éç©ç¬çå§ íêµì´ (Korean) n. - ëë´ , 조롱 , ì¬ì´ ì¼ v. intr. - ëë´íë¤, ëë¦¬ë¤ v. tr. - ë리ë¤, ììê±°ë¦¬ë¡ ë§ë¤ë¤ idioms: * beyond a joke ìì´ ë길 ì ìë * make a joke of ëë´íë¤ * the joke is on ì´ë¦¬ìì´ë³´ì´ë æ¥æ¬èª (Japanese) n. - åè«, æªãµãã, ç¬ãè, ç©ç¬ãã®ç¨®, åãã«è¶³ãã¬äº, 容æãªã㨠v. - åè«ãè¨ã, ãããã, ã²ããã idioms: * beyond a joke ç¬ããªã * cannot take a joke ç¬ã£ã¦ãã¾ããªã * joking apart/aside åè«ã¯ãã¦ãã * make a joke of åè«ãè¨ã * no joke åè«äºãããªã * the joke is on ãã¾ãããããã اÙعربÙÙ (Arabic) â(اÙاسÙ) ÙÙتÙ, اضØÙÙÙ, ÙزØÙ (ÙعÙ) ÙزØ, ÙÙت, ÙزÙâ ×¢×ר×ת (Hebrew) n. - â®×××××, ×ת×××, ק×× ××ר⬠v. intr. - â®×ת×××⬠v. tr. - â®××× ×צ××⬠If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here. 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It uses material from the Wikipedia article Joke. Read more Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more Featured guides * Cabbage Soup Recipes * How To Install An Invisible Dog Fence * How to Sell on eBay * Dish Network Internet Reviews * Lyme Disease Symptoms Follow us Facebook Twitter YouTube Mentioned in * antic * gleek * pliskie * mockery * trick * orthodox * Scherz * April fool (victim of a joke or trick) * in-joke * prank * Procter, J. J. (Quotes By) * yock * yuk * What a Joke/Stay of Execution (2000 Album by Deliverance) » More» More IFRAME: /main/noscript_ads.jsp?title=joke&ntabs=13&category= Site * Sitemap * ReferenceAnswers * WikiAnswers * VideoAnswers * Coupons * Guides Company * About * Terms of Use * Privacy Policy * IP Issues * Disclaimer Tools * 1-Click Answers * AnswerTips * Webmasters * Apps/Add-ons Community * Guidelines * Reputation * Roles * Help Updates * Email * Watchlist * RSS * Blog International Sites English Deutsch Español Français Italiano Tagalog Copyright © 2012 Answers Corporation #RSS [p?c1=2&c2=8430704&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&cv=2.0&cj=1] Study Guides and Lesson Plans Study smarter. * Welcome, Guest! * Background X Change background: + Blackboard + Green chalkboard + Desk * Sign In * Join eNotes ____________________ Search * Q&A * DISCUSSION * TOPICS * eBOOKS & DOCUMENTS * FOR TEACHERS * LITERATURE * HISTORY * SCIENCE * MATH * MORE SUBJECTS + ARTS + BUSINESS + SOCIAL SCIENCES + LAW AND POLITICS + HEALTH * JOIN eNOTES * * eNOTES PEOPLE Jokes * Reference * Q&A * Discussion * Wikipedia * Print * Cite * Share This article is about the form of humour. For other uses, see Joke (disambiguation). This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (August 2010) Contents * 1 Purpose * 2 Antiquity of jokes * 3 Psychology of jokes * 4 Jokes in organizations * 5 Rules + 5.1 Precision + 5.2 Synthesis + 5.3 Rhythm + 5.4 Comic + 5.5 Wit + 5.6 Humour * 6 Cycles * 7 Types of jokes + 7.1 Subjects + 7.2 Styles * 8 See also * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 Further reading * 12 External links A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general. Antiquity of jokes Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[1] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. ^[2] A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes, the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are: A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me." There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[3] Psychology of jokes Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being: * Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis: "An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..." * Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings. * Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten). * Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science. * Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986). Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly. * Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990). Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example: + Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter. + Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line. + Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up. + Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern. * In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1]. Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain. Jokes in organizations Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[4] This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[5] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[6] Rules The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[7] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself. Precision To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]): Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. Synthesis That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^[citation needed] An example from George Carlin: I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[8] Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^[citation needed] Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague] Rhythm Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^[citation needed]. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line). In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline. Comic In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child. Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen: "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". The typical comic technique is the disproportion. Wit In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[9](Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen: I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[10] Irony can be seen as belonging to this field. Humour In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[9]^[11] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen: Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program. Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Cycles Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[12] Folklorists have identified several such cycles: * the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[13] * Viola jokes^[14] * the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[15]^[16]^[17] * the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[18] * the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[19] * the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[20] * the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[21] * the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[22] * the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[23] * the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[24] * the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[25] * the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[26] * the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle^[27] * The "Blond Joke" Cycle. Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[28] Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[29] Types of jokes Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category. Subjects Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems. Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other. Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.) Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive. For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples. Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered even more funny. Religious jokes fall into several categories: * Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes) * Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc. * Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..." * Letters and addresses to God. Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humour. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke. Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?". Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman. Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour; to joke about disability is considered in this group. Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.. Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^[citation needed] A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came: "His right leg is as different as his left one'. An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant. Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the Mighty Boosh TV series. Styles The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts. Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling. A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy." Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common aphorism, commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, spun off from their long-running BBC radio show My Word!.) See also * Anecdote * Comedy * Comedy genres * Computational humor * East Frisian jokes * Feghoot * Funny * Humor * Internet humour * Irish jokes * Joke chess problem * Mathematical joke * Paradox * Polish joke * Pun * Punch line * Roman jokes * Russian jokes * The Funniest Joke in the World * World's funniest joke Notes 1. ↑ 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC. 2. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jo kes-revealed-by-university-research.html 3. ↑ Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book March 13, 2009 4. ↑ "Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73,283-308." 5. ↑ "Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 4,423-445." 6. ↑ "Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. Journal of Management Studies, 39,269-288." 7. ↑ Henri Bergson (2005) [1901]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Dover Publications. http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html. 8. ↑ George Carlin (2010). George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty. Highbridge Company. 9. ↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 Sigmund Freud (missingdate). Wit and its relation to the unconscious. missingpublisher. pp. 180,371–374. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html. 10. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humour. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55. ISBN 3-11-014255-4. 11. ↑ Sigmund Freud (1928). "Humour". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 12. ↑ Salvatore Attardo (2001). "Beyond the Joke". Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 69–71. ISBN 311017068X. 13. ↑ K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick (1980). "The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370) 93 (370): 441–448. doi:10.2307/539874. http://jstor.org/stable/539874. 14. ↑ Carl Rahkonen (Winter 2000). "No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1) 59 (1): 49–63. doi:10.2307/1500468. http://jstor.org/stable/1500468. 15. ↑ Elizabeth Radin Simons (October 1986). "The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 261–277. doi:10.2307/1499821. http://jstor.org/stable/1499821. 16. ↑ Willie Smyth (October 1986). "Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4) 45 (4): 243–260. doi:10.2307/1499820. http://jstor.org/stable/1499820. 17. ↑ Elliott Oring (July – September 1987). "Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397) 100 (397): 276–286. doi:10.2307/540324. http://jstor.org/stable/540324. 18. ↑ Laszlo Kurti (July – September 1988). "The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401) 101 (401): 324–334. doi:10.2307/540473. http://jstor.org/stable/540473. 19. ↑ Alan Dundes (April – June 1979). "Polish Pope Jokes". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364) 92 (364): 219–222. doi:10.2307/539390. http://jstor.org/stable/539390. 20. ↑ Christie Davies (1998). Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 186–189. ISBN 3110161044. 21. ↑ Alan Dundes (July 1979). "The Dead Baby Joke Cycle". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3) 38 (3): 145–157. doi:10.2307/1499238. http://jstor.org/stable/1499238. 22. ↑ Christie Davies (2002). "Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of Nations. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765800969. 23. ↑ Christie Davies (1999). "Jokes on the Death of Diana". In eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter. The Mourning for Diana. Berg Publishers. pp. 255. ISBN 1859732380. 24. ↑ Alan Dundes (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States". Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332) 84 (332): 186–203. doi:10.2307/538989. http://jstor.org/stable/538989. 25. ↑ Alan Dundes, ed (1991). "Folk Humor". Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 612. ISBN 0878054782. 26. ↑ Alan Dundes (October – December 1985). "The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore (The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390) 98 (390): 456–475. doi:10.2307/540367. http://jstor.org/stable/540367. 27. ↑ Robin Hirsch (April 1964). "Wind-Up Dolls". Western Folklore (Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2) 23 (2): 107–110. doi:10.2307/1498259. http://jstor.org/stable/1498259. 28. ↑ Charles R. Gruner (1997). The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. Transaction Publishers. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0765806592. 29. ↑ Dr Arthur Asa Berger (1993). "Healing with Humor". An Anatomy of Humor. Transaction Publishers. pp. 161–162. ISBN 0765804948. References * Mary Douglas “Jokes.” in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Further reading * Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. * Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393066738. External links Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. * Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic * Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes. Copyright Information This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. For information on the contributors, please see the original Wikipedia article. Related Content Study Guides * The Joke by Milan Kundera Reference * Killing Joke * The Joke * The Joke * The Joke QA * What is the theme in The Bear: A joke in one act by Anton Chekhov? * Why do the people of the Bottom retell the joke on themselves? * My daughter is having trouble describing "The joke that the prince played." For a question on The Whipping Boy. Can someone help? * Why is a mathematician like an airline? * Find and example of a joke between Grumio and Curtis in Act IV Scene I of The Taming of the Shrew. Documents * One for the Books (A joke) * Word Play: A Whale of a Joke * Three Little Books * Laugh and Learn Grammar * Word Play: Pause for a Laugh Criticism * Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism: The Bildungsroman in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Joke Kardux (essay date 1992) * Contemporary Literary Criticism: Heller, Joseph (Vol. 11) - Eliot Fremont-Smith * Shakespearean Criticism: King Lear (Vol. 61) - Douglas Burnham (essay date 2000) * Shakespearean Criticism: The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 64) - Shirley Nelson Garner (essay date 1988) eNotes.com is a resource used daily by thousands of students, teachers, professors and researchers. We invite you to become a part of our community. Join eNotes Become an eNotes Editor © 2012 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subject Areas * Literature * Business * Health * Law & Politics * History * Arts * Math * Science * Social Sciences Useful Areas * Help * About Us * Contact Us * Jobs * Privacy * Terms of Use * Advertise on eNotes Quantcast Quantcast #Edit this page Wikipedia (en) copyright Wikipedia Atom feed Essex girl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An Essex girl is a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom of a female who is said to be promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has gained popularity over time, dating from the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike Essex man, which became aspirational stereotype for working-class voters in the south and east of England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Essex girl does not carry positive political connotations. Contents * 1 Image * 2 Essex girl jokes * 3 See also * 4 References * 5 Further reading [edit] Image The stereotypical image was formed as a variation of the dumb blonde/bimbo persona, with references to the Estuary English accent, white stiletto heels, silicone enhanced breasts, peroxide blonde hair, over-indulgent use of fake tan (lending an orange appearance), promiscuity, loud verbal vulgarity and to socialising at downmarket nightclubs. Time magazine has written: In the typology of the British, there is a special place reserved for Essex Girl, a lady from London's eastern suburbs who dresses in white strappy sandals and suntan oil, streaks her hair blond, has a command of Spanish that runs only to the word Ibiza, and perfects an air of tarty prettiness. Victoria Beckham – Posh Spice, as she was – is the acknowledged queen of that realm ...^[1] The term initially became synonymous with the lead characters of Sharon and Tracey in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather. These brash, uninhibited women had escaped working-class backgrounds in London and moved to a large house in Chigwell. The image has since been epitomised in celebrity culture with the likes of Denise Van Outen, Jade Goody, Jodie Marsh, Chantelle Houghton,and Amy Childs all rising to some degree of fame with the help of their Essex Girl image. [edit] Essex girl jokes Essex girl jokes are primarily variations of dumb blonde jokes, though often sexually explicit. In 2004, Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester in Essex, appealed for debate in the House of Commons on the issue, encouraging a boycott of The People tabloid, which has printed several derogatory references to girls from Essex.^[2] [edit] See also * Valley girl * Trixie * The Only Way Is Essex [edit] References 1. ^ Elliott, Michael (19 July 2007), "Smitten with Britain", Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645138,00.html 2. ^ Rose, David, MP urges boycott of The People over Essex Girl jokes, http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=253 73, retrieved 2007-09-12 [edit] Further reading * Christie Davies (1998), Jokes and Their Relation to Society, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 186–189, ISBN 3110161044 * v * d * e Stock characters and character archetypes Heroes * Action hero * Boy next door * Christ figure * Contender * Epic hero * Everyman * Final girl * Folk hero * Gunfighter * Harlequin * Ivan the Fool * Jack * Mythological king * Prince Charming * Romantic hero * Superhero * Tragic hero * Youngest son * Swashbuckler Antiheroes * Byronic hero * Bad boy * Gentleman thief * Lovable rogue * Reluctant hero Villains * Alazon * Archenemy * Bug-eyed monster * Crone * Dark Lord * Evil clown * Evil twin * False hero * Femme fatale * Mad scientist * Masked Mystery Villain * Space pirate * Supervillain * Trickster Miscellaneous * Absent-minded professor * Archimime * Archmage * Artist-scientist * Bible thumper * Bimbo * Black knight * Blonde stereotype * Cannon fodder * Caveman * Damsel in distress * Dark Lady * Donor * Elderly martial arts master * Fairy godmother * Farmer's daughter * Girl next door * Grande dame * Grotesque * Hag * Handmaiden * Hawksian woman * Hooker with a heart of gold * Hotshot * Ingenue * Jewish lawyer * Jewish mother * Jewish-American princess * Jock * Jungle Girl * Killbot * Knight-errant * Legacy Hero * Loathly lady * Lovers * Magical girlfriend * Magical Negro * Mammy archetype * Manic Pixie Dream Girl * Mary Sue * Miles Gloriosus * Miser * Mistress * Nerd * Nice guy * Nice Jewish boy * Noble savage * Petrushka * Princess and dragon * Princesse lointaine * Rake * Redshirt * Romantic interest * Stage Irish * Superfluous man * Tarzanesque * Town drunk * Tsundere * Unseen character * Yokel * Youxia * Literature portal * Stereotypes Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essex_girl&oldid=468141918" Categories: * 1980s slang * 1990s slang * British slang * Culture in Essex * Pejorative terms for people * Sex- or gender-related stereotypes * Slang terms for women * Stock characters * Youth culture in the United Kingdom Personal tools * Log in / create account Namespaces * Article * Talk Variants Views * Read * Edit * View history Actions Search ____________________ (Submit) Search Navigation * Main page * Contents * Featured content * Current events * Random article * Donate to Wikipedia Interaction * Help * About Wikipedia * Community portal * Recent changes * Contact Wikipedia Toolbox * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Cite this page Print/export * Create a book * Download as PDF * Printable version Languages * Русский * Svenska * This page was last modified on 28 December 2011 at 20:11. * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. 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Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Contact us * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Mobile view * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Website - Logo Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Search Website Advanced Search keyword Enter Keyword_______ [mast_search_but.gif]-Submit * Home + Media Business + The Wire + Free supplements + Insiders' briefings + Events + Obituaries + People + Media Law + Photography & Photojournalism * Leveson * Interactive + Phone-hacking timeline + Newsquest's difficult decade timeline + Quizzes and polls + Privacy and the press timeline + Journalism events diary + Press Gazette daily (free) + Twitter + Seven-day news diary * Newspapers + National Newspapers + Regional Newspapers + ABCs: Newspaper Circulation Figures + British Press Awards + Regional Press Awards * Mags + B2B Magazines + Consumer Magazines + Customer Publishing + ABCs: Magazine Circulation Figures + Magazine Design & Journalism Awards * Broadcast + Television + Radio + Rajars * Law * Digital + ABCe: Web Traffic Data * Freelance + Freelance Directory + Reporters' Guides + News Diary + Essential Services + News Contacts * Training + Journalism Education + Journalism Training Supplement + Journalism training courses directory * Blogs + Grey Cardigan + Axegrinder + The Wire + Editor's Blog + Media Money * Jobs + Journalism Jobs + PR Jobs * Subscribe Skip to [ Story Content and jump story attachments ] - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - Advertisement - * Printable Version Printable version * E-Mail to a friend E-mail to a friend - Related articles * Speaker spent £20,000 on libel lawyers Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Main Page Content: MP urges boycott of The People over Essex girl jokes 26 March 2004 An MP is so incensed with The People for publishing "derogatory remarks" about Essex girls that he has urged readers to stop buying it. Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, has urged them to register a protest by switching to another Sunday newspaper. He made his appeal in a House of Commons motion which is open to other MPs to sign. "Had the offensive comments been directed at people because of their colour or religion it would have caused outrage amongst all decent citizens and would be considered by some to break the law," he said in his motion. The MP has taken offence at a story in last Sunday's People about Prince William allegedly arranging a date with an Essex girl. On the inside pages, the story was illustrated by a string of Essex girl jokes. "Such attacks on women from Essex have no place in civilised society," said Russell. "They are unworthy of any publication which wants to be taken seriously" The motion calls on people to boycott The People and to "switch their alliegance" to another Sunday paper. If enough MPs sign, Leader of the House Peter Hain could face pressure to yield government time for a debate. Russell can also apply to Speaker Michael Martin to grant him a halfhour slot to raise his concerns in a mini-Commons debate. By David Rose Comments View the forum thread. RSS logo RSS Feed: All Comments Press Gazette comments powered by Disqus More Options * RSS Feeds * Latest News * The Knowledge * more… * Blogs * The Wire * Media Money * more… * Contact Press Gazette * Press Gazette on Twitter * Press Gazette on Facebook * Press Gazette Digital Edition Top - Abacus E-media Abacus e-Media St. Andrews Court St. Michaels Road Portsmouth PO1 2JH - Advertisement All the Best jobs for Jounalists and PR * © 2010 Progressive Media International * TERMS & CONDITIONS * CONTACT US * INDEX * SITE MAP * A-Z * RSS * SUBSCRIBE Skip:[To Main Navigation | Secondary Navigation | Third Level Navigation | Page Content | Site Search] Google 401. [INS: Thatâs an error. :INS] Your client does not have permission to the requested URL /books?hl=fr&lr=&id=ZT4MBxNnYA8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Salvatore+Attardo+(20 01).+%22Beyond+the+Joke%22.+Humorous+Texts:+A+Semantic+and+Pragmatic+An alysis.+Walter+de+Gruyter&ots=WGn_ChVgZ-&sig=LKARloiyQe70G30RpBI0K7Eb40 U. [INS: Thatâs all we know. :INS] #Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠» Comments Feed Crap Joke of the Day⢠WordPress.com Crap Joke of the Day⢠The world's best crap jokes, bad jokes Skip to content * Home * About * Submit a Crap Joke * What is a Crap Joke? ← Older posts Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 Posted on August 17, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the end of Wednesday, fellow crap jokers. âTis a busy time here at CJotD headquarters. With the famous Crap Joke Generator® out of action (it was badly damaged in the great fire), weâve been racking our brains to devise suitable crap-jokery to pass on to our loyal readers. So often, as any joke-writer worth his salt will tell you, a new joke comes from a theme. Todayâs joke is no different, and its theme came through an unexpected source. While drinking our local public house, our head researcher got talking to a dishevelled looking man with an eye patch who suggested he was considering hiring a superhero costume and heading out onto the London streets to tackle rioters. He was clearly insane (he told our researcher that he had already started important conversion work on his 1982 Ford Fiesta), but nonetheless we thought he had a point. And surely that point is this: the world needs more heroes. So, with that in mind, here’s today’s CJotD. Enjoy. Did you hear about the man who collected Joan Of Arc, Wonder Woman and Florence Nightingale memorabilia? He was a heroine addict. Well, they canât all be winners. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 Posted on August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment Since our last Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢, times in London have been troubled. CJotD HQ, just recently reopened for business after the great fire of April 2011, has been on lockdown. Whatever part of the world youâre from â and CJotD fans are certainly a global crowd â you will have no doubt heard about the rioting that has hit Londonâs streets, and subsequently other cities across England. The latest is that there is looting in Peckham now – apparently the reprobates have taken half-price cracked ice, miles and miles of carpet tiles, TVs, deep freeze, David Bowie LPs… Think about that one. Anyway. Ultimately, we hope that CJotD can bring a little bit of light to the darkness, whether youâre young or old, hippy or hoodie. Weâre here for everyone. So hereâs todayâs cracker, which stands in stark contrast to the wanton thuggery out there. It will be enjoyed by those that remember the cult childrenâs TV show classic, Rainbow. What’s the name of Zippy’s wife ? Mississippi Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment Picture this. Itâs 29 April, 1985. Oddly-spectacled Dennis Taylor has crumbled in the face of snooker-based genius Steve Davis, finding himself seven frames to none down in the final of the world snooker championships. Davis was on fire. He was a god of the green baize: a modern Achilles brandishing a maple spear. Taylor looked every bit the vanquished Trojan warrior. His fans looked on, tutting. No-one thought Davisâ mistake in frame eight would mean anything. But, hours later, Taylor had achieved the impossible, besting the world champion on a respotted black in the deciding frame. As he lifted snookerâs greatest trophy above his head, he stood astride the world an unlikely hero. This was the greatest comeback of all time. Until now. As youâll know, loyal CJotD reader, by April we had published 29 glorious mirth-makers. Popularity was soaring. But with popularity came a relentless demand for ever more ground-breaking two liners. Buckling under the rising tide of expectation, the system broke. An incident involving our office runner, some new-fangled highlighter pens and an overheating photocopier led to a raging inferno that burned the office to the ground. Four months on, and weâre back. We have a new office and a new, can-do attitude. Weâre still finding our feet, but weâll give it a go. Hereâs todayâs effort. Enjoy â and give us a five star rating. Go on. This is our 1985. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? Put it in a microwave until its Bill Withers. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment Raise a glass – youâve made it to the end of the week. Well, the end of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠week at least –  this will be the last CJotD until next Tuesday because of the Easter break. We suggest this is one you should cherish â after all, we donât want you suffering withdrawal symptoms. What a record-breaking, jaw-dropping week of firsts it has been here at CJotD. We published the first in a series of fan profile posts on Tuesday, and followed it up with the first ever reader submitted crap joke. We were also featured on an article on chortle.co.uk. The result of all this success: people flocked to the website in numbers never witnessed before. Our servers creaked under the pressure but, propped up by some sterling work from the IT department, stood firm. So the team here at Crap Joke of the Day⢠are all heading down to the local watering hole to enjoy a collective sigh of contentment (and probably one or two light ales). But first, of course, we owe you a crap joke.  Todayâs epic crap joke is one of those perfectly timed numbers â certainly one to tell your friends over the coming weekend. Learn it word-for-word, practice in front of a mirror and then deliver it unflinchingly and with conviction: youâll be guaranteed a laugh. Probably. Happy Easter. Arnold Schwarzenegger didnât get any Easter eggs this year. His wife asked him âDoes this mean you hate Easter now, Arnie?â He replied âAh still love Easter babyâ. Another one of those, same time on Tuesday. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Keen followers of Crap Joke of the Day⢠witnessed a world exclusive this morning: the launch of a new series of posts based on Friends® of CJotD. If you missed it, have a read of the first ever no-holds-barred interview with a real CJotD fan here. More will follow. These profile pieces are part of our efforts to recognise the role that our readers have played in our meteoric rise (a rise exemplified by our recent mention in an article by comedian Matt Price on popular comedy website chortle.co.uk). And weâre not stopping there – there is another opportunity for crap joke-based fame and fortune. Some of you will have clicked on the âsubmit a crap jokeâ link at the top of the screen. Others have gone further: many a dreary canteen lunch here at CJotD HQ has been enlivened by a public retelling of a fanâs crap joke. Today is the day we put one of your crap jokes to the test: for the very first time, an official Crap Joke of the Day⢠will come from a reader. Here it is. Is it better than our normal efforts? Let us know by leaving a comment or giving it a star rating. Think you can do better? Submit your own crap joke. Oh â and if youâre reading this and itâs your joke, you might want to let the world know youâve been published. Take a bit of the credit â you deserve it. I got stung by a bee the other day. 20 quid for a jar of honey. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 2 Comments Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today Posted on April 19, 2011 | 2 Comments Crap Joke of the Day⢠is just 27 days old, but is already a phenomenon on the tinterweb superhighway. Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots; a queue of advertisers is forming at the oak-panelled CJotD door. But weâre not naïve here at CJotD: we know that we would be nothing without our fans. You have made Crap Joke of the Day⢠the living, breathing community that it is today, and we want to give something back. So weâre proud to announce the launch of a new series of posts featuring interviews with our biggest supporters: Friends® of CJotD. These will be bare-all affairs that really get to the heart of how exactly fans âenjoy CJotDâ. Hopefully weâll all gain a little inspiration from sharing these CJotD stories, routines and nostalgia. The first such interview is with Zaria. Zaria discovered the site a few weeks back and, since then, has become one of our finest ambassadors, truly taking CJotD to work with her. Hi Zaria. We hear youâre a big CJotD fan. How did you find out about it? I saw it mentioned in the âTop 10 Twitterers to Watch of 2011â in The News of the World culture section. You can follow Zaria on Twitter @zaria_b, and CJotD @crapjokedaily â ed. Yeah, a lot of people saw that. What are your earliest memories of crap jokes? My family are a dynasty of crap jokers â I was brought up with it all around me. I guess thatâs why I feel so home at crapjokeoftheday.com. How do you experience Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢? I read it aloud in the office to my colleagues â weâre only a small team of six, and we share our office with some librarians (thatâs not a joke). Itâs always a challenge to see if we can get a smile out of those old girls. Sounds like youâve got a regular thing going. Would you say you have any Crap Joke of the Day rituals? It always tends to be after lunch, once everyone has a very strong cuppa in hand. Weâll have just finished the paper crossword, and be in need some encouragement as we face the prospect of another afternoon at the grindstone. One afternoon we had ran out of milk and couldnât accompany CJotD with a cup of tea. It was pretty extreme, but we still pulled through. In your opinion, what is the mark of a good crap joke? Groaning â you know youâve not hit the spot until youâve heard a groan! What’s been your favourite CJotD so far? CJotD #8 was a real highlight in our office. Like I said we often have the CJotD after completing the crossword. Surely that joke proves that itâs life that imitates art⦠Would you say CJotD has changed you at all? Itâs changed my life in more ways then I can mention. I honestly believe peace in the world would be possible if more people took just two minutes to read CJotD each day. Has anyone sent a link to Gaddafi? ‘Laughter is the best medicine’. Discuss. This sounds like Andrew Lansleyâs tag line at the moment! Anything to save some money in the NHS! By taking part in this interview, Zaria has now formally become a Friend® of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. Want to share that prestigious title? Volunteer to answer some simple questions by emailing us here. → 2 Comments Posted in Friends of CJotD Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 Posted on April 18, 2011 | 1 Comment Good afternoon, crap joke fans. We are delighted today to preview an exciting CJotD launch. Tomorrow morning, Crap Joke of the Day⢠will be launching a new series of posts. Posts based on you. In many ways, CJotD is less a website, and more a thriving community of people who love to hate to laugh at bad jokes. Our new series of posts will look at the people in that community, unearthing precisely how crap jokes make them tick. From the rituals and routines to the stories and the sniggers, we sincerely hope these fan musings will help us all get a little bit more out of each daily instalment of CJotD. But thatâs tomorrow. What about today? Well, thereâs merely a crap joke, just for you. And a brilliantly childish one at that â tell the kids to give it a five star rating. What do you call a monkey in a minefield? A Babboom! Or a chimpbangzee. Or a gibbang. Or an obangutan. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment Welcome to the weekend, friends of Crap Joke of the Dayâ¢. This weekend will neatly punctuate a remarkable five days in the history of CJotD: five days that have seen more than their fair share of turmoil, exhilaration, despair and laughter for us hard-working types here at HQ. The CJotD board are more than a little obsessed with numbers. Never a day goes by when a new report, chart or spreadsheet isnât created, the Crap Joke of the Day⢠supercomputer crunching a vast array of numbers to help our writers hone our writing and our marketers refine our marketing. With the penchant for numbers and data gathering force, it was our accounts team that inspired the commentary ahead of Crap Joke of the Day⢠#18 (no doubt you remember it well). The geekier CJotD fans among you gave that one rave reviews, so our editors decided we should give you a similar taste of trivia. Like 18, 26 itself is a remarkable number in its own right. There are, of course, 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 miles in a marathon, and 26 red cards in a traditional deck*. As youâll know, 26 is also the number of spacetime dimensions in bosonic string theory, and the number of sides in a rhombicuboctahedron. Slightly more on topic, a âjoke throwâ in darts â where a player throws a 20, a 5 and a 1 when aiming for treble 20s â is 26 in total. So, to celebrate the birth of a brand new weekend on CJotDâs 26^th birthday, todayâs crap joke is a classic. Give us a good rating â make us happy. I was walking by the fridge last night and I swore I could hear an onion singing a Bee Gees song. Turns out it was just the chives talking. Another one of those, same time on Monday.  * The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that there are also 26 black cards. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#25 Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment The best and most successful organisations know their audience inside out, and CJotD is no exception. Our in-depth CJotD enjoyment index survey© gets our customer relations team the most detailed and reliable insight on how to keep our jokes relevant to our readersâ lives. We know, for example, that CJotD fans are a massively diverse bunch and have a huge variety of skills, professions, interests, hobbies and pastimes. Some get their kicks watching football or by working all the hours god sends, others spend their spare time playing backgammon or making sacle models of historic ships out of balsa wood. But what does this mean? Well, it means one joke doesnât fit all. If our readers are diverse, we must be diverse. In fact, being diverse has probably been the secret of our runaway success to date (we are now nearing 200 fans on Facebook), and so far our crap jokes have taken in subjects including fairgrounds, the army, factory working, text messaging, goths and circumcision. What other organisation would tackle such a mesmerising array of hot topics? So todayâs joke covers an area weâve never covered before, and is aimed at all those CJotD fans that also like a bit of tennis. It focuses on a former world number one who returned to training yesterday after months out of the game. Enjoy. Did you hear that Serena Williams has left her boyfriend? These tennis players – love means nothing to them. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → 1 Comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day Crap Joke of the Day⢠#24 Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment Despite the mystery of the Crap Joke of the Day⢠logbook’s disappearance drawing to a close yesterday, we unfortunately havenât seen the back of the police here at CJotD HQ. We have been officially charged with wasting police time, and are taking the allegations very seriously. Senior Crap Joke of the Day⢠executives have freed up time for potential police interviews, and it was agreed in an emergency board meeting this morning that these interviews would be colour-coded red in diaries. As a result of the charges, resources here at CJotD HQ are stretched to the absolute maximum and the HR team have been forced into temporarily realigning roles and responsibilities. Copywriters are lending a hand on the web design desk, quality control officers are pulling the strings on editorial team and the managing director is filing with the archivists. Our work experience student is still making the tea. So weâre just going to get on with todayâs crap joke. No more mucking around, no more beating about the bush. Weâre just going to push right on, get right to it, with none of the normal flourish or fanfare. So, with no further ado⦠Did you hear about the unemployed jester? Heâs nobodyâs fool. Another one of those, same time tomorrow. → Leave a comment Posted in A Crap Joke of the Day ← Older posts * Search CJotD Search for: ____________________ Search * Recent posts + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#32 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#31 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#30 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#29 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#28 + New series of CJotD fan inteviews launches today + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#27 + Crap Joke of the Day⢠#26 * Not crap + Aha! Jokes + Chortle + East meets Jest Comedy + Edinburgh Fringe 2011 + HumorLinks + Jokes Place + Vicky's Jokes + Work Joke * Follow CJotD on Facebook! [facebook.jpg] * Follow CJotD on twitter! + @Jimmisav @JenProut We apologise for the lack of crap jokage - we've been riven with startup issues (mainly resourcing). Back soon! 4 months ago + Need a hero in these dark and tortured times? Today's Crap Joke of the Day⢠delivers http://t.co/1h9rrYs #jokes #jokeoftheday 5 months ago + A pleasant, almost child-like Crap Joke of the Day⢠to calm us in these troubling times. Enjoy http://bit.ly/nGC84x #jokes 6 months ago + Looting in Peckham now. Apparently they've taken half-price cracked ice, miles & miles of carpet tiles,TVs, deep freeze & David Bowie LPs... 6 months ago + @miketheharris Thanks for your support! Without the fans, CJotD is nothing - the editorial team 6 months ago * Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9 other followers ____________________ Sign me up! * RSS feed + RSS - Posts * AddFreeStats.com Free Web Stats! Web Stats * Find CJotD Humor Blogs Direcory BlogCatalog Theme: Coraline by Automattic. Blog at WordPress.com. Follow Follow “Crap Joke of the Day⢔ Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Enter your email add Sign me up Powered by WordPress.com Skip to Main Content USA TODAY * ____________________ Search * Subscribe * Mobile * Home * News * Travel * Money * Sports * Life * Your Life * Tech * Weather Joke's on those who joke about Japan By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY Updated | | Share Reprints & Permissions Nothing like a staggering natural disaster to bring out mankind's ... worst? While the crisis gripping Japan has tugged on hearts and wallets, it also has drawn cracks from cultural figures that redefine insensitivity: * Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. EnlargeClose By Charles Sykes, AP Comedian Gilbert Gottfried's tweets cost him his longstanding gig with the Aflac duck. o Comic Gilbert Gottfried was fired Monday as the voice of insurance giant Aflac after tweeting jokes such as "They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them." o Family Guywriter Alec Sulkin tweeted that feeling better about the quake was just a matter of Googling "Pearl Harbor death toll." Almost 2,500 died in that 1941 attack; more than 10,000 are feared dead in Japan. o Rapper 50 Cent joked that the quake forced him to relocate "all my hoes from L.A., Hawaii and Japan." He tweeted in apology: "Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value." Is our insta-mouthpiece part of the problem? Don't blame the messenger, says Twitter's Sean Garrett, citing "The Tweets Must Flow." The company blog memo notes Twitter's inability to police the 100 million daily tweets. Comedians often do get away with emotional murder. That's their job, Joan Rivers tweeted Tuesday in Gottfried's defense: "(Comedians) help people in tough times feel better through laughter." Too soon, as Rivers' catchphrase asks? "There's a line in our culture, but it seems to keep moving," says Purdue University history professor Randy Roberts. Before, "a tasteless joke wouldn't make it past a cocktail party. Now it reaches millions instantly. Don't say something stupid if you don't want people to hear it." Even so, joking about death may be over the line. "People died here -- it's something your parents should have taught you never to make fun of," says Teja Arboleda, a former comedian and founder of Entertaining Diversity, which advises companies on diversity questions. "There's humor that helps us through a tragedy, and humor where you kick people when they're down. There's no reason for the latter." And yet others have piled on, including Glenn Beck (who called the quake a "message from God") and pro basketball player Cappie Pondexter (ditto). Dan Turner, press secretary for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, resigned Monday after circulating a Japan joke to staffers. "Japan is always going to be a target for some, as Germany and the Middle East might be for others," says Shannon Jowett at New York's Japan Society. "But I'd rather focus on the overwhelming sense of support we are seeing." For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. Posted | Updated Share We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. 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Inc. #Accueil Archives Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? La Blague Européenne Officielle Atom 1.0 publisher Where is Ploum? Flattr this Follow @ploum * Blog * Index * À propos/About * Contact recherche/ ok Aller au contenu | Aller au menu | Aller à la recherche « La Blague Européenne Officielle - Rendre l'obsolescence obsolète ? » The Official European Joke Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:31 :: belgiom, best seller, buzz, humour, politique, world, Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Europe European paradise: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. European hell: You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don't worry, everything is organised by an Italian. petits drapeaux européens That joke was proposed by a Belgian as the Official European Joke, the joke that every single European pupil should learn at school. The Joke will improve the relationship between the nations as well as promote our self humour and our culture. The European Council met in order to make a decision. Should the joke be the Official European Joke or not? The British representative announced, with a very serious face and without moving his jaw, that the joke was absolutely hilarious. The French one protested because France was depicted in a bad way in the joke. He explained that a joke cannot be funny if it is against France. Poland also protested because they were not depicted in the joke. Luxembourg asked who would hold the copyright on the joke. The Swedish representative didn't say a word, but looked at everyone with a twisted smile. Denmark asked where the explicit sexual reference was. If it is a joke, there should be one, shouldn't there? Holland didn't get the joke, while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept? Spain explained that the joke is funny only if you know that the lunch was at 13h, which is normally breakfast time. Greece complained that they were not aware of that lunch, that they missed an occasion to have some free food, that they were always forgotten. Romania then asked what a "lunch" was. Lithuania et Latvia complained that their translations were inverted, which is unacceptable even if it happens all the time. Slovenia told them that its own translation was completely forgotten and that they do not make a fuss. Slovakia announced that, unless the joke was about a little duck and a plumber, there was a mistake in their translation. The British representative said that the duck and plumber story seemed very funny too. Hungary had not finished reading the 120 pages of its own translation yet. Then, the Belgian representative asked if the Belgian who proposed the joke was a Dutch speaking or a French speaking Belgian. Because, in one case, he would of course support a compatriot but, in the other case, he would have to refuse it, regardless of the quality of the joke. To close the meeting, the German representative announced that it was nice to have the debate here in Brussels but that, now, they all had to make the train to Strasbourg in order to take a decision. He asked that someone to wake up the Italian, so as not to miss the train, so they can come back to Brussels and announce the decision to the press before the end of the day. "What decision?" asked the Irish representative. And they all agreed it was time for some coffee. If you liked the article, tips are welcome on the following bitcoin address: 1LNeYS5waG9qu3UsFSpv8W3f2wKDjDHd5Z Traduction française de ce billet disponible ici Imprimer avec Joliprint ODT * Tags : * belgiom * best seller * buzz * humour * politique * world Commentaires 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 12:55 par Pedro The joke is certainly done by somebody that never tasted Spanish food. 2. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 13:25 par Janne And yet, the union still beats the hell out of everybody killing each other for the past fifty years. 3. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 14:52 par AO Haha truely funny! Tho I'm sad Portugal doesn't know what a joke is. I'm laughing, tho I guess I'm weird. 4. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:15 par Federico Hey! Italian food is much much much better than the French one! Well, actually, I can't think about a thing that French does better than Italian :-) (you know, it's always the same old love-hate relationship between Italy and France) 5. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 15:29 par Sven ACHTUNG, you forgot to reference the registration ID for the proposal. There are procedures for this kind of stuff, you know, for a reason. ;) -- Sven, Germany 6. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 17:48 par Ante You know you'll have to do this all over again once Croatia joins the EU :) 7. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 18:40 par Kevin The Austrian representative agreed that this was a really nice idea and then returned home to make a bug fuss about how the EU forces its own agenda undermining the Austrian humor culture 8. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 02:05 par Ryan James And the American doesn't see how that is funny at all. Damn Europeans. 9. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 04:16 par Vicky Katsarova Hi there, I find the joke refreshing...and cute. 10. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 06:55 par Dan And then they all got together and smugly talked about how tolerant they all are while they made racist jokes about Turks and blacks and Roma, who don't have a place in Europe or its official joke. HA HA. How long until you people start WW3? 11. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 08:59 par billy that's right, the italian men definitely swallow better 12. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 11:08 par Joaquim Rocha Why was the joke a new concept for the Portuguese? This a funny post indeed :D 13. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:19 par PTahead I didn't get the joke... of the comments about the joke. Someone must be enjoying playing geek without any skill. 14. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 15:58 par Alibaba Hm .. Italians will bring the underage escorts :) 15. Le mardi, février 8 2011, 20:25 par jana Why the Czechs weren't mentioned? (from FB) Czechs first asked the Germans about their thoughts on the subject and then promised they'll go with the exact opposite provided they'll be backed by the Irish. If not, they'll just block the vote. And to support this stance, they approved a new voting system and elected Klaus president for the third time. Later on, they pointed out that the inability to find consensus over the joke clearly suggests that EU is an empty leftist concept and ventured out to find the closest buffet. Anyway, for them the joke is irrelevant since, obviously, 'paradise' and 'hell' do not exist. 16. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 06:25 par Paul Johnson Reminds me of the official Canada joke. "Canada could have been great. It could have had American technology, British culture and French cuisine. Instead, it got French technology, American culture and British cuisine. 17. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 13:47 par Anita Hahaha, great explanation :) 18. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:05 par wim brussel Indeed, THIS IS EUROPE ! Without each other they can`t live, but together they are always quarrelling ! 19. Le mercredi, février 9 2011, 16:06 par andima I translated it in Italian just for sharing (including a link to this post). Hope you don't mind. Here is the translation: http://andimabe.blogspot.com/2011/0... 20. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 05:04 par ing The joke was absolutely hilarious. 21. Le jeudi, février 10 2011, 14:01 par Richard Kurylski There are three conclusions one can draw: 1) The decision should not be decided in Strasbourg but unanimously by all the Parliaments of all the countries concerned. 2) The proposal should then go the mathematicians because they are the only ones able to square the circle. 3) Our politicians have a really tough time in Brussels. 22. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 15:19 par Federico Gobbo I have just translated your post in Italian, with a couple of links to the French and the English variants. I was so astonished by your sharpness! Here it is: http://federicogobbo.wordpress.com/... 23. Le vendredi, février 11 2011, 21:31 par Sense Hofstede There is no such thing as Holland! The state Holland, part of the Netherlands, was split in two at the very end of the 18th century. (Cameron is not PM of England either, is he? Just as people from Northern-Ireland are most certainly not English.) That aside, I do think that before we should not conclude that this is a funny joke until it is accepted by all national parliaments. Only then can we be sure the sovereignty of our great nations will not be endangered by those reckless eurocrats! Hand the proposal to the Council of Ministers, they'll know what to do with it. 24. Le samedi, février 12 2011, 15:40 par RicaLopes Portuguese could do everything, invitation, welcoming, food preparation, put in the the mood and organise for less money and as well as the best in each task. Portuguese do it better, at lower prices than the second best. I love Portugal. 25. Le jeudi, février 17 2011, 23:19 par Frank This is funny... i can't understand why "while Portugal didn't understand what a "joke" was. Was it a new concept?" Portugal is the country where people tell more jokes per second. It is where the culture of "anedotas" (little and funny stories - I don't the exact translation) 26. Le mercredi, février 23 2011, 20:06 par Heikki I assume the Finnish didn't show up? 27. Le vendredi, février 25 2011, 01:14 par Ryszard Here is also Polish translation, already published in Gazeta Wyborcza: http://ploum.net/go/13 28. Le lundi, février 28 2011, 10:03 par eurodiscombobulation Cultural schizophrenia from true political athletes; this is just the tip of the iceberg - thank heavens that federalism drowned somewhere near the bottom! 29. Le dimanche, mars 13 2011, 21:17 par espace.ariane Excellent =D 30. Le jeudi, mars 24 2011, 18:59 par Lavaman Portugal didn't get the joke? The Portuguese people are the funniest people in all of Europe...I think this is more of a racist comment made by those close-minded Germans, Dutch etc. 31. Le jeudi, mars 31 2011, 09:51 par melon This one is hilarious indeed :) For those who seem to lack some well-developed sense of humour, well... at least admit that the post has funny parts as well. Cheers, a Hungarian citizen (whose part in the joke is sad but true -> therefore funny) 32. Le jeudi, avril 14 2011, 07:34 par Lio This is Europe. Kindly protect the biodiversity! 33. Le dimanche, juillet 31 2011, 22:58 par Maxx Lol :D It doesnt make sense that portuguese don't get the joke... believe me :D ...and then, turkish supplicated to be accepted in Europe :DD ahah Good joke 34. Le jeudi, septembre 15 2011, 16:14 par Nick And everybody forgot about the Bulgarians, which of course suits them perfectly... 35. Le lundi, février 6 2012, 19:50 par Christine I am Belgian with our famous good sense of humour and I love the joke v e r y m u c h !... Obviously, it should be tought at the European School where all students should learn it by haert, maditate and keep all the benefit of its teaching. Thank you and long live to Europe... La discussion continue ailleurs 1. Le lundi, février 7 2011, 21:17 par www.meneame.net La broma europea [ENG] Proceso humorístico de cómo sería la reacción de los diferentes paises de la unión europea a este chiste: Paraíso europeo: Eres invitado a una comida oficial. Te recibe un inglés, un francés prepara la comida y un italiano ameniza la velada, todo es...... Langues * Français * English S'abonner * Fil des billets * Fil francophone * Abonnement par mail (complet) * Abonnement par mail (FR uniquement) * Fil des commentaires * Uniquement les histoires Subscribe * All posts feed * English-only feed * All posts by email * Comments feed Last comments * La chaussette de Schrodinger, un phénomène encore mal compris des physiciens - Eli * The Official European Joke - Christine * Google moins, web et vie privée - Flaburgan * Pourquoi je suis un pirate ! - vincent Design par David Yim. Propulsé par Dotclear. piwik #YourDictionary.com YourDictionary ____________________ Submit Dictionary Home » Sentence Examples » joke joke sentence examples Listen See in DictionarySee in Thesaurus * Most platoon officers were first class and well liked by the lads, even cracking jokes with us. * In the workplace men, and women now, are expected to laugh at dirty jokes, and even tell dirty jokes. * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. * Joking aside, we had a great time working in scotland. * They also told rude jokes, or imitated birds or animals to get a crowd. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * Stephen: " do you know any good viola player jokes? * Joke films jesse's car ride to the courtroom and them joking around outside it, despite the prospect of a daunting jail sentence. * Joke perpetrated on believers to make them feel better about life being a struggle, sometimes brutal and painful. * A junior often bursts into laughter, as the boss has a bout of cracking silly jokes. * Now, to quote kevin smith, " enough being political, lets do some dick jokes " . * I can't wait to hear the next joke. * Chris's idea of fun is playing cruel jokes on local journalists. * This really could be the genesis of the fat mother-in-law joke, " one of the team breathlessly asserted. * John robson is seen here enjoying a joke with his joint master jimmy edwards at a meet in 1979. * I'm not going to stand here and give you a list of lame jokes. * Post the latest funny sms jokes here for all to laugh at. * With the town basking in the glory of our unique status this is surely some kind of sick joke? * Knock knock jokes, your mama jokes, why did the chicken cross the road. The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com. Learn more about joke » joke definition » joke synonyms » joke phrase meanings » joke quote examples link/cite print suggestion box More from YD * Answers * Education * ESL * Games * Grammar * Reference * More Feedback Helpful? Yes No * Thanks for your feedback! close * What's wrong? Please tell us more: (*) Incomplete information ( ) Out of date information ( ) Wrong information ( ) This is offensive! Specific details will help us make improvements_____________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Submit Also Mentioned In » butt » crack » crap » fool » fun » funny » gag » nerd » practical joke » sick » about 615 more... Browse entries near joke JOJA JOJAA JOJO jojoba JOK joke (synonyms) joke (idioms) joked joker joker (synonyms) Submit About YourDictionary Advertisers Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Bookmark Site Help Suggestion Box © 1996-2012 LoveToKnow, Corp. All Rights Reserved. Audio pronunciation provided by LoveToKnow, Corp. Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician (EPM) Jokes Recurring Jokes These jokes are circulated by word-of-mouth around engineering, physics, amd math departments at universities and industries; Many are available on the web. The best of the genre work because readers of all 3 persuasions think they make out best. You'll find many variations of the following jokes out there. The “Odd Primes” joke Probably the most well known EPM joke of all. Here are 3 versions: A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer enter a mathematics contest, the first task of which is to prove that all odd number are prime. The mathematician has an elegant argument: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime. Therefore, by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime. It's the physicist's turn: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 11's a prime, 13's a prime, so, to within experimental error, all odd numbers are prime.' The most straightforward proof is provided by the engineer: `1's a prime, 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime, 9's a prime, 11's a prime ...'. How a mathematician, physicist and an engineer prove that all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Mathematician: "Well, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime so, by induction all odds are prime." Physicist: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, (bad data point), 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime 13 is prime, so all odds are prime." A mathematician, physicist and an engineer are asked whether all odd numbers, (greater than 2), are prime. Their responses: Mathematician: "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime and 7 is prime, but 9 is a counter-example so the statement is false" Physicist: "OK, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 isn't prime, 11 is prime, and so is 13, so all odds are prime to within experimental uncertainty." Engineer: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, so all odds are prime." Some more variations on the “Odd Primes” joke: Several professors were asked to solve the following problem: "Prove that all odd integers are prime." Mathematician: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is not a prime - counter-example - claim is false. Physicist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is a prime ... Engineer: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime, 11 is a prime ... Computer Scientist: 3's a prime, 5's a prime, 7's a prime ... segmentation fault Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate that nine should be considered prime. The following brief presents the case for nine's primeness... Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived cultural environment which can only be remedied by a federally funded cultural enrichment program. Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime, five is prime five is prime, five is prime, five is prime... Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student. Linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime,... Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime... Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish! New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release,... Salesperson: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 -- let me make you a deal... Advertiser: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 11 is a prime,... Accountant: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, deducting 10% tax and 5% other obligations. Statistician: Let's try several randomly chosen numbers: 17 is a prime, 23 is a prime, 11 is a prime... Looks good to me. Psychologist: 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, 7 is a prime, 9 is a prime but tries to suppress it... The “Canned Food” joke: There was a mad scientist (a mad SOCIAL scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his desicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: THEOREM: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. PROOF: Assume the opposite ... Similarly for chemist, engineer, mathematician: The chemist had collected rainwater to corrode the cans of beans so he could eat them. The engineer had taken apart her bed and made a crude can opener out of the parts. The mathematician was slouched on the floor, long since dead. Written in blood beside the corpse read the following: Theorem: If I don't eat the beans I will die. Proof: Assume the opposite and seek a contradiction. The “Calculation” jokes A variant: three professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one". The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001 the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe. A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were asked how much three times three is. The engineer grabbed his pocket calculator, eagerly pressed a couple of buttons and announced: "9.0000". The physicist made an approximation (with an error estimate) and said: "9.00 +/- 0.02". The mathematician took a piece of paper and a pencil and sat quietly for half an hour. He then returned and proudly declared: There is a solution and I have proved that it is unique! Mathematician: Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Engineer: Pi is about 22/7. Physicist: Pi is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005 Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision. Nutritionist: You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert! The “Fire!” joke A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms. The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to her desk, pulled out her CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, she threw down her pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. She threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep. The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep. The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you-name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep. Three employees (an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician) are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar. The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trashcan from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed. Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed. Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. She goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. She thinks for a moment and then exclaims, 'Ah, a solution exists!' and then goes back to bed. A physicist and a mathematician are in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee when, for no apparent reason, the coffee machine bursts into flames. The physicist rushes over to the wall, grabs a fire extinguisher, and fights the fire successfully. The same time next week, the same pair are there drinking coffee and talking shop when the new coffee machine goes on fire. The mathematician stands up, fetches the fire extinguisher, and hands it to the physicist, thereby reducing the problem to one already solved... The “Zeno's Paradox” joke In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?" The mathematician said: "Never." The physicist said: "In an infinite amount of time." The engineer said: "Well... in about two minutes, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes." The “Herding Sheep” joke An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" The “Black Sheep” joke An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black." The “Metajoke” An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to herself happily as she now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. Miscellaneous Single Jokes These jokes don't seem as common or varied, but still get the point(s) across. What is the difference between and engineer, a physicist, and a mathimatician? An engineer believes equations approximate the world. A physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. The three umpires at an amateur baseball game, an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician during the week, all call a player out on what could only be described as a close call. The coach of the player who thought he'd made the base asked the umpires why they'd called his player out. The engineer replied ``He's out 'cause I called it as it was.'' The physicist replied ``He's out 'cause I called it like I saw it.'' The mathematician replied ``He's out 'cause I called him out.'' A farmer, an engineer, and a physicist were all asked to build a chicken coop. The farmer says, "Well, last time I had so many chickens and my coop was so and so big and this time I have this many chickens so I'll make it this much bigger and that oughtta work just fine." The engineer tackles the problem by surverying, costing materials, reading up on chickens and their needs, writing down a bunch of equations to maximise chicken-to-cost ratio, taking into account the lay of the land and writing a computer program to solve. The physicist looks at the problem and says, "Let's start by assuming spherical chickens....". A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "One of the two measurements wasn't very accurate." The biologist: "They have reproduced". The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again." A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician were out game hunting. The engineer spied a bear in the distance, so they got a little closer. "Let me take the first shot!" said the engineer, who missed the bear by three metres to the left. "You're incompetent! Let me try" insisted the physicist, who then proceeded to miss by three metres to the right. "Ooh, we *got* him!!" said the statistician. A physicist and an engineer are in a hot-air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, and have no idea where they are. They see another person in a balloon, and call out to her: "Hey, where are we?" She replies, "You're in a balloon," and drifts off again. The engineer says to the physicist, "That person was obviously a mathematician." They physicist replies, "How do you know that?" "Because what she said was completely true, but utterly useless." A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer are each given $50 to measure the height of a building. The mathematician buys a ruler and a sextant, and by determining the angle subtended by the building a certain distance away from the base, he establishes the height of the building. The physicist buys a heavy ball and a stopwatch, climbs to the top of the building and drops the ball. By measuring the time it takes to hit the bottom, he establishes the height of the building. The engineer puts $40 into his pocket. By slipping the doorman the other ten, he establishes the height of the building. __________________________________________________________________ Compiled by Richard Martin, August, 2006. About Us For Patients & Visitors Clinical Services Education Research News & Events Contact Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database * About the Database * Editorial Board * Annotators * What's New * Blog * MedHum Home * Art + Annotations + Artists + Meet the Artist + Viewing Room * + Annotated Art Books + Art in Literature * Literature + Annotations + Authors + Meet the Authors * + Listening Room * + Reading Room * * Performing Arts + + Film/Video/TV Annotations + Screening Room * + Theater * * Editors' Choices + Choices + Editor's Biosketch + Indexes + Book Order Form * Search + Annotation Search + People Search + Keyword (Topic) + Annotator + Free Text Search * Asterisks indicate multimedia Comments/Inquiries Literature Annotations __________________________________________________________________ [lit_small_icon.gif] Freud, Sigmund The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious __________________________________________________________________ Genre Criticism (230 pp.) Keywords Communication, Doctor-Patient Relationship, History of Science, Humor and Illness/Disability, Ordinary Life, Power Relations, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Scapegoating, Science, Suffering Summary The book is split into three parts, the Analytic Part, the Synthetic Part and the Theoretical Part. The Analytic Part begins with an excellent synopsis of earlier theories of comedy, joking and wit, followed by a meticulous psychological taxonomy of jokes based on such features as wordplay, brevity, and double meanings, richly illustrated with examples. This section ends with Freud's famous distinction about the "tendencies" of a joke, in which he attempts to separate those jokes that have tendencies towards hidden meanings or with a specific hidden or partly hidden purpose, from the "abstract" or "non-tendentious" jokes, which are completely innocuous. He struggles to provide any examples of the latter. In the midst of his first example, he suddenly admits that he begins "to doubt whether I am right in claiming that this is an un-tendentious joke"(89) and his next example is a joke that he claims is non-tendentious, but which he elsewhere studies quite intensely for its tendencies. Freud uses this to springboard into an exploration of how a joke involves an arrangement of people - a joketeller, an audience/listener, and a butt, often involving two (the jokester and the listener) against one, who is often a scapegoat. He describes how jokes may be sexual, "stripping" that person, and then turns towards how jokes package hostility or cynicism. The synthetic part is an attempt to bring together the structure of the joke and the pleasurable tendencies of the joke. Why is it that jokes are pleasurable? Freud's answer is that there is a pleasure to be obtained from the saving of psychic energy: dangerous feelings of hostility, aggression, cynicism or sexuality are expressed, bypassing the internal and external censors, and thus enjoyed. He considers other possible sources of pleasure, including recognition, remembering, appreciating topicality, relief from tension, and the pleasures of nonsense and of play. Then, in a move that would either baffle his critics or is ignored by them, Freud turns to jokes as a "social process", recognizing that jokes may say more about social life at a particular time than about particular people; he turns this into an investigation of why people joke together, expanding on his economical psychic perspectives with discussions of social cohesion and social aggression. In the third part, Freud connects his theories of joking with his dream theories in order to explain some of the more baffling aspects of joking (including how jokes seem to come from nowhere; how we usually get the joke so very quickly, even when it expresses very complicated social phenomena; and why we get a particular type of pleasure from an act of communication). He ends with an examination of some of these themes in other varieties of the comic, such as physical comedy and caricature. Commentary This book is one of Freud's more accessible forays into culture and the psychologies of social life, with less investment in the psychoanalytic process as a form of therapy than some of his other books, and fewer discussions of doctor-patient relationships; but such topics are never far from his mind. What do we learn about people from the jokes they tell? Why do we joke? Why does laughter seem involuntary? Why is something so common and universal so difficult to explain? These are some of the questions Freud tackles. His idea that jokes package a tremendous amount of hostility was not new nor was the idea that joking is an emotional catharsis (and Freud duly acknowledges his sources). But, in a structuralist move par excellence, he explores how the semantic forms of joking relate to psychological forms: the brevity, the word play, the grammatical and semantic relations. It is unfortunate that critics of Freud so rarely offer as considered an account of his work as the one he offers of general theories of comedy at the outset of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. The first few pages are a concise, astute, and accurate synopsis of the theories of comedy. Some of his own ideas, such as the way he maps economies onto our psyche, may seem awkward, but they are worth considering and this is one book where his novel ideas about comedy are, if not impossible to prove or disprove, also worth considering. Freud proposes a number of theoretical approaches to understanding jokes and wit, built up around the idea that joking is not just about laughter replacing anxiety and fear but is also a way of expressing unconscious thoughts related to maturity, social control, sexuality and aggression in daily life, all of which takes place in a public and social milieu. His work very much bridges older theories of joking, such as a Hobbesian superiority or catharsis, with social and anthropological theories, such as Henri Bergson's or Mary Douglas's. Those who offer a synopsis of Freud's thinking about jokes based on one theory - e.g., that he thinks that jokes emerge from an unconscious aggression as a way of bypassing the internal censor - have not familiarized themselves with the many different approaches Freud takes in this book, and the way in which he openly struggles with the nebulous terrain of comedy and how science might approach this psychological, social, cognitive and cultural phenomenon. Publisher Penguin Classics Edition 2002 Place Published New York Miscellaneous First published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Lepzig: Deuticke) Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W. Date of Entry 03/20/08 Copyright (c) 1993 - 2012 New York University No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke as Musician's Folklore Presented by Carl Rahkonen at the National Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, October 21, 1994, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Copyright (c) 1994. The author has requested that if you quote any of this information, please cite this paper. As with any other group, musicians tell stories and jokes to one another based upon their specialized knowledge and experience. In recent years there has been a joke cycle among musicians pertaining to the viola. For those of you not familiar with the viola, it is slightly larger than the violin, and plays the alto, or middle-range voice in the string section of an orchestra. Being a violist myself, and also an ethnomusicologist trained folklore, I have paid particular attention to the telling of viola jokes, and over the past three years have personally collected fifty examples. From the number of different musicians who told me these jokes, I can conclude that they were being told in music departments, in major symphony orchestras, regional and community orchestras, and were even being told in orchestras abroad. As further evidence of the pervasiveness of the viola joke cycle, I have heard several programs on WQED, the Pittsburgh classical music radio station that have featured viola jokes. I have seen viola jokes published in the Pittsburgh Musician, the newsletter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471. The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday March 27th, 1994 featured an article on the viola section of the Cleveland Orchestra, which begins with the line "Hold the viola jokes." Also, cartoonists have featured the viola in some of their recent work. [examples were shown] Going strictly by the number of jokes I personally heard, the viola joke cycle began in 1992, reached it peak in 1993, and at the present time has greatly diminished. In order to organize these jokes, I have arranged them into six different categories, which are not necessary mutually exclusive: 1. Jokes disparaging the viola itself. 2. Jokes disparaging viola players. 3. Jokes which offer a general disparagement, which can be easily understood outside musical circles. 4. Jokes which usually can only be understood by among musicians. 5. Reverse jokes which get revenge on musicians telling viola jokes. All the viola jokes in these first five categories are in the form of a question and answer, so I have added a sixth category which I call 6. Narrative viola jokes [author's list of viola jokes here, all of which appear on the viola jokes page.] As you may have guessed by now the viola is considered somewhat a second-class citizen in the orchestra. There are several reasons for this. Orchestral viola parts are easier than violin parts and they tend to be the less important, non-melodic parts. If viola players do get difficult parts, as they do from time to time, they tend to struggle while trying to play them. As an instrument, the viola does not have the same carrying power as a violin or cello, since it is pitched one-fifth lower than a violin, but is only about 10% larger. Its solo literature is very limited. Only string bassists tend to suffer the same stereotyping as violists, because of a lack of solo literature for the instrument and having mundane orchestral parts. An additional handicap is the fact that most violists start out as violinists. Even the greatest violist of recent times, William Primrose, in his book Playing the Viola, includes a chapter about coming to viola playing by way of the violin. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article I mentioned earlier revealed that ten out of the eleven violists in Cleveland Orchestra started out on the violin! One of the first assumptions in junior high school orchestras is that the director will switch the poor violinists over to viola, where they will do less harm, and perhaps even contribute. Viola players are frequently considered inferior musicians since they are thought of as the ones who couldn't make it playing the violin. An additional factor is the extremely hierarchical structure of a symphony orchestra with regards to musical authority. The conductor is the highest authority. The next highest is the concertmaster, who is the first chair, first violin. The brass, wind, and percussion players are typically all soloists playing one person to a part, so the real pecking order can be seen primarily in the string sections. Each of the string sections has a principal player, whose job it is to lead that section, giving specific directions with regards to bowings, fingers and phrasings. The principal players also gets to play the solo parts, if there are any. Each of the string sections are seated in hierarchical order, with the better players near the front. Superimposed of this hierarchy is an overall hierarchy in the strings. The first violins are the most important, almost always playing the chief melodies. The cellos are perhaps the next most important, followed by second violins, violas and string basses. The violas are always at, or near the bottom, of the hierarchy. There is an historical reason for this. In the beginning of the era when symphonies began, comparatively few pieces had actual viola parts. As a rule the violas doubled the cellos, switching octaves whenever necessary. Early symphonies were published with three string parts, 1st violin, 2nd violin and bass. The poor violas dragged along with the basses, and were frequently played by individuals who couldn't handle the violin. The attitude and stereotype about the viola and its players can be seen quotations about the viola from a standard reference work, The Dictionary of Musical Quotations (Ian Crofton and Donald Fraser, Schirmer Books, 1985, p.152): "The viola is commonly (with rare exceptions) played by infirm violinists, or by decrepit players of wind instruments who happen to have been acquainted with a string instrument once upon a time." Richard Wagner, in 1869, quoted in Gattey Peacocks on the Podium (1982). "If you'd heard the violas when I was young, you'd take a bismuth tablet." Sir John Barbirolli, quoted in Kennedy, Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (1971). So why are viola jokes told? Certainly for fun and humor, but they also serve the functions of reinforcing the hierarchical structure of the orchestra and to voice unspoken but widely understood stereotypes. A joke will be funny only if it is unanticipated and if there is some basis to it in reality. Irvin Kauffman, the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, was a significant informant for viola jokes. He assured me that the violists of the Pittsburgh Symphony are just as fine musicians as the rest of the orchestra, and that other musicians tell viola jokes because, "The violas get paid the same money for doing a dumb (i.e., easier) job!" __________________________________________________________________ Viola Jokes / top level music jokes page / send email Last modified: 1997/01/03 17:01:20 by jcb@mit.edu UVA Today: Top News from the University of Virginia * U.Va. News + News Releases + News by Category + U.Va. Profiles + Faculty Opinion + News Videos + U.Va. Blogs + UVA Today Radio * Headlines @ U.Va. * Inside U.Va. + Announcements + For Faculty/Staff + Accolades + Off the Shelf + In Memoriam * UVA Today Blog * For Journalists * All Publications * About Us * Subscribe To + Daily Report E-News + RSS News Feeds + Podcasts/Vodcasts * Search U.Va. News + Keyword / Na [2006-11 News] Go [7238_photo_1_low_res] U.Va. law professors Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar * Print this story * Email this story Contact: Rebecca P. Arrington Assistant Director of Media Relations (434) 924-7189 rpa@virginia.edu To Catch a (Joke) Thief: Professors Study Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-up Comedy News Source: Law December 10, 2008 -- In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from joke theft. In February 2007, stand-up comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia squared off on stage at a prominent Los Angeles comedy club after Rogan accused Mencia -- whom he dubbed "Carlos Menstealia" -- of pilfering material from other comedians. A video of the altercation garnered more than 2 million views online and countless mentions on blogs and Web sites. "The two of them had an almost physical fight on stage where they were yelling at each other about the accusation of joke stealing, and Mencia was denying it," said Chris Sprigman, who with faculty colleague Dotan Oliar authored an upcoming Virginia Law Review article, "There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy." The Mencia-Rogan argument led the two intellectual property law scholars to an interesting question: With scant legal protection for their work -- copyright law plays little role in comedy -- why are stand-up comedians willing to invest time and energy developing routines that could be stolen without legal penalty? After almost a year of research that included interviews with comedians ranging from comedy club circuit neophytes to seasoned veterans of television specials, Oliar and Sprigman found that the world of stand-up comedy has a well-developed system of social norms designed to protect original jokes -- and that the system functions as a stand-in for copyright law. "Most of our research over the last year has been trying to piece together all the attributes of this system that comedians have started up and run for themselves," Sprigman said. In their paper, published in the December edition of the Virginia Law Review, Oliar and Sprigman identify several of the informal rules that govern stand-up comedy. The most obvious is the prohibition against joke stealing, which resembles formal intellectual property law in spirit. But the researchers found other comedy norms don't closely adhere to the law on the books. "Under regular copyright law, if two people write a book together, they are co-owners of the copyright," Oliar said. "With comedians, if one comedian comes up with a premise for a joke, but another supplies the punch line, the guy who came up with the premise owns the joke. The guy who came up with the punch line knows that he doesn't get an ownership stake, he's just volunteering a punch line to the other guy." The stand-up community also has enforcement methods for violators. The first step a comedian takes if he feels another is stealing his material is to go and talk to the suspected culprit, Oliar said. The two try to determine whether one of them has copied the joke from the other or whether they each came up with it independently. In the process, they may compare notes on who has been doing the joke longer, and appeal to third-party witnesses if necessary to settle the facts. In some cases, the offending comedian may not even have realized that he or she didn't come up with a joke, Sprigman and Oliar said. "We heard one story where a guy was confronted by his best friend. He said 'Oh, you're right,' and he stopped doing the joke. It's called subconscious copying, and it is also actionable in copyright law. While creating, you're not aware that you heard it somewhere before," Oliar said. Other arrangements could include the comedians sorting out how each one should tell the joke, or in what geographic area. In some cases, they simply agree not to do the joke if they are on the same bill. Most joke ownership disagreements -- perhaps as many as 90 to 95 percent -- can be settled this way, Oliar said. But when negotiation doesn't work, the comedy community has its own methods for punishing violators. During his on-stage confrontation with Rogan, Mencia was on the receiving end of one of the most potent techniques comedians use to deter joke thievery: venomous ridicule. The stand-up community is relatively small, and is made up of a few thousand practitioners, many of whom see each other with some regularity. So word gets around if someone is a joke stealer, and other comedians make the workplace uncomfortable for the alleged thief. "We just heard over and over again that the bad-mouthing sanction was something that created an unpleasant environment for the accused comic to be in," Sprigman said. Sometimes, affronted comedians will refuse to work with a suspected joke thief. As many comedy clubs require multiple comedians to fill up a bill, this can be an effective form of punishment because it hits the perpetrator in the wallet and robs them of desired exposure, Oliar said. A third, less-frequently used sanction is physical violence, or at least the threat of it. "This is not very common," Oliar said. "Comedians aren't bullies generally. They are funny people and they don't want to end up in jail over a joke, as one of them told us. But still, since the confrontation is one-on-one and it's very loaded, and since there have been cases of actual violence and stories about it abound among comedians, there is always the fear that it might happen. Certainly threats of violence are much more common among comedians than actual violence." For Sprigman and Oliar, the study of stand-up comedy has ramifications for the larger world of intellectual property law, or the body of law that protects creative works through devices such as patents, trademarks and copyrights. The underpinning of such law is the notion that without it, theft would be so rampant that there would be no incentive to create or innovate, Oliar said. "For us, the most salient observation is that the law has not done the job of protecting jokes, but the joke market has not failed. The market is substituting this set of informal rules for the formal ones, and as far as we can see it's doing a pretty good job," Sprigman said. In their research of stand-up comedy, the pair found that as the nature of stand-up evolved, so did the stand-up community's system of protecting itself from joke thieves. "It's very costly and very hard to come up with funny jokes. It's actually a long process; you don't just work in your room and then you have it. You have to try it out and see if people laugh. A lot of them, you write and you think it's funny -- try it out and people don't laugh, so you change the words and you work the stand-up circuit night after night. It takes time to make a joke funny and make a joke actually work," Oliar said. Today's stand-up is individualized and driven by a comic's unique point of view. But it wasn't always so. Before the 1960s, most stand-up comedians used a rapid delivery of short, one-liner "jokey-jokes" that were more or less interchangeable. Some would get these zingers -- which included the ever-present ethnic jokes or mother-in-law jokes -- from joke books or other sources. Some would also steal. The emphasis, Sprigman said, was on the delivery, not the content of the joke, and joke theft was not only rampant but also more or less accepted. "Then in the '60s, we have this norm system arising, and suddenly it's the new era of stand-up as we know it today, which is very individual, personal and point-of-view driven. People don't just stand and tell jokes that came from a book," Oliar said. During their research, Sprigman and Oliar found a high degree of interdependence between the changing nature of stand-up comedy and the emergence of the norm system to govern joke theft. "So typically we talk about intellectual property law having an impact on how much innovation we get, but here we see an impact of intellectual property protection on what kind of innovation we get, which is a totally different thing," Sprigman said. Both men stressed that joke theft is not common in the world of stand-up comedy, and that most comedians pride themselves on creating original material. One potential downside to the social norm system as opposed to formal legal protection is that social norms might not be effective at punishing comedians who get to the top of the field, they said. "If a successful comedian doesn't care too much about the community's feelings toward him, then he's hard to discipline," Sprigman said. "But keep in mind that the formal law doesn't always work either. There are all kinds of copyright rules that apply to the music industry, but there are millions of people illegally downloading songs. "There's always a slippage between the law on the books, or the rules in the norms system, and the ability of these rules to be enforced." This story originally appeared on the U.Va. School of Law Web site. Maintained By: Media Relations, Public Affairs If you did not find what you were looking for, email the Media Relations Office Last Modified: Wednesday, 09-Feb-2011 09:18:32 EDT (c) Copyright 2012 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia Text only version [jester.gif] Jester 4.0 Jokes for Your Sense of Humor Home * About * Register (Optional) * Login (Optional) Is there truth behind all humor, or is it the other way around? Jester uses a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes. Update: Jester now uses Eigentaste 5.0, an algorithm that improves upon Eigentaste. In addition, user registration has been made optional. To learn more about Eigentaste, go here. Instructions: After telling us where you heard about Jester, click on the "Show Me Jokes!" button. You'll be given a set of 8 jokes to rate. After that, Jester will begin recommending jokes that have been personalized to your tastes. Please rate the jokes by clicking on the rating bar on the bottom on the screen. Click to the left of the rating bar if the joke makes you wince or to the right if it makes you laugh uncontrollably, and anywhere in between if appropriate. If you have seen or heard a joke before, please try to recall how funny it was to you the first time you heard it and rate it accordingly. Note: Some of the jokes in our database may be considered by some to be offensive. If you are likely to be offended by mild ethnic, sexist, or religious jokes, please do not continue. Thank you. Where did you hear about Jester? ____________________ Show Me Jokes! Also check out: [opinion_banner.jpg] [dd_banner_square.jpg] Donation Dashboard uses Eigentaste to recommend a donation portfolio to you. #RSS 2.0 RSS .92 Atom 0.3 Language Log * Home * About * Comments policy Don't joke the monkeys October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation « previous post | next post » I believe that the following photographs are exclusive for Language Log, since they were taken by Ori Tavor in Sichuan province this past summer, and I don't think that he has sent them anywhere else. I'll first say where the photographs were taken and generally what category they fall into, and then explain each of them briefly. They will not each receive the full-dress treatment I usually give Chinglish specimens, both because there are too many of them and because they're fairly obvious. No.1 and no.5 are classic examples of translation software. No. 1 was taken next to the Wenshu (Manjusri) monastery in Chengdu and no. 5 was taken outside Baoding Temple at the foot of Emei Shan. No.2 and no.3 are apparently part of the PRC's ongoing war against disorderly urination ("the lesser convenience"), a topic that we have touched upon many times on Language Log. They were taken at the Big Buddha site in Leshan and on Mt. Emei. No.4 was taken at the entrance hall to the Mt. Emei site. No.6 was taken on Mt. Emei, where monkeys are a real menace. Sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 is a kind of super-soft bean curd with veggies, etc. sprinkled on top (sā 撒 means "spread" and zi 子 is a colloquial suffix). Google Translate renders sāzi dòuhuā 撒子豆花 as "spread sub-curd". The translator may have thought that sāzi sounds like "Caesar", although the latter is usually rendered in Mandarin as Kǎisǎ 凯撒. It is possible that the "sub-" of "sub-curd" somehow triggered "Caesar sub". Indeed, when we put "Caesar sub" in Google Translate, the Chinese rendering comes out as sāzi 撒子! That's about as far as I want to go with this one. This sign over a urinal enjoins gentlemen to "tiējìn zìrán, kàojìn fāngbiàn" 贴近自然，靠近方便 ("get close to nature, step forward to urinate"), i.e., don't do it on the floor. Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù, wénmíng yī dà bù 向前一小步，文明一大步 ("one small step forward [to urinate], one big step forward for civilization"). Shades of Neil Armstrong! The translation of mièhuǒqì xiāng 灭火器箱 as "fire extinguisher box" presents no problems. What is curious here is the way the painter of the sign has broken up the three English words into four clumps in an attempt to match the four Chinese characters. This is the opposite treatment from running together all the letters of English words, which used to be common in Chinglish signs, but has become increasingly less so in recent years. The sign advertises that this inn is the Jù mín shānzhuāng 巨民山庄 ("Villa of Giants") and that its services and amenities include zhùsù 住 宿 ("lodging"), cānyǐn 餐饮 ("food and drink"), xiūxián 休闲 ("rest; leisure"), yúlè 娱乐 ("entertainment"), and cháshuǐ 茶水 ("tea [water]", cf. German "Teewasser"). The sign politely informs the public: cǐ chù yě hóu xiōngměng, qǐng wù xì hóu 此处野猴凶猛，请勿戏猴 ("the monkeys here are fierce; do not tease / play with the monkeys"). The allure of Chinglish never fades. More charming examples on the way. October 20, 2011 @ 12:41 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Lost in translation Permalink __________________________________________________________________ 17 Comments » 1. F said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:20 am I've only ever encountered a transitive use of "to joke" (meaning "to kid, to toy with") in Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises.) I wonder if the translation software picked that up from him. Occam's razor says no. 2. Benvenuto said, October 20, 2011 @ 2:54 am More likely the muppet Zoe: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Zoe than Hemingway. But actually I think transitive 'to joke' is fairly common, it's the kind of cute mistake that children often make and so has been adopted into slang. See also Lady GaGa lyric: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-hear-them-lyrics-lady-gaga.html 3. Bob Violence said, October 20, 2011 @ 4:57 am It's nothing that elaborate — 戏 in Chinese has multiple translations (joke, tease, play, make fun) and can be transitive or intransitive. Either their translation software didn't account for the difference in English, or they checked a Chinese-English dictionary and went with the first word that seemed right, again not distinguishing the transitive from the intransitive. For the record, Google Translate renders the phrase as "do not play monkey," which I think is actually a valid translation (as in "don't act like a monkey"). Baidu Fanyi produces "don't monkey show," treating 戏猴 as a fixed expression. Google also translates 戏猴 by itself as "monkey show." 4. Jon Weinberg said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:11 am @F and Benvenuto, here's a Lily Allen lyric: "Oh my gosh you must be joking me / if you think that you'll be poking me" 5. sm said, October 20, 2011 @ 6:22 am The fire extingui sher box seems to be a widespread thing — I saw one in Xi'an last year. 6. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am I've been aware of transitive 'joke' as in Lily Allen's 'You must be joking me' among British-English speakers for at least 20 years now, possibly longer - there's some comment about it dating from 2005 here http://painintheenglish.com/case/412 which claims the transitive use is noted in the OED (I'm not able to check this myself at the moment.) I would have guessed it was largely a British idiom, but Lady Gaga's use of it would suggest that it is in US English too. My guess is that it derives from the more common, and definitely transitive, 'you must be kidding me.' 7. Carley said, October 20, 2011 @ 7:56 am Ooh, my husband can confirm the existence of the "One small step ahead, one giant leap in civility" sign–I remember he commented on it at the airport in Guilin. 8. Aaron Toivo said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:00 am "Joke" is commonly transitive, it just normally takes a subclause or a quotation as its complement ("He joked that you can't get down off an elephant", and so forth). The anomaly here lies in "joke" taking a simple noun as its complement, not in having one. But "you must be joking me" is an idiom that isn't productive: you can't change the verb's tense (*you must have joked me), and you can't easily change the pronoun to 2nd or 3rd person (??you must be joking him). 9. Steve F said, October 20, 2011 @ 8:02 am The earliest occurrence of 'you must be joking me' in Google books is 1943 and is American. 10. Plane said, October 20, 2011 @ 10:49 am Is "increasingly less so" standard? I suppose it probably is, but it tripped my interesting-dar, and I had to re-read it a couple times. 11. Joe McVeigh said, October 20, 2011 @ 11:13 am It's obviously a Public Enemy reference ("The monkey ain't no joke" - Gett Off My Back). The Chinese National Park Service be kicking it old school. Respect. 12. Anthony said, October 20, 2011 @ 1:35 pm The two urinal signs are at least reasonably good English, even if the first one substituted "civilized" for "close to nature". Is the third ideogram in the fire extinguisher photo ever pronounced "sher"? If so, it would be a nice pun. 13. Nelson said, October 20, 2011 @ 9:17 pm I would guess the use of "civilized" is chosen deliberately: "Get close to nature" would sound a little strange in English, and I'm not sure I'd know what it meant. Those two do seem human-translated. 14. Rodger C said, October 21, 2011 @ 8:10 am Is this related to the obsolete meaning of "nature" as a euphemism for genitals? Uh, no. 15. Brendan said, October 23, 2011 @ 9:15 am I think the "sub" in 凯撒子豆花 must come from "子" in the sense of e.g. 子公司 (subsidiary company). 16. Lareina said, October 27, 2011 @ 12:12 pm Caesar Salad has its Chinese version now!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! This post made me laugh so hard that I slipped off the chair in the middle of night and my roommate knocks asks if anything goes wrong… It's surprising how the translation software now can adjust order of wording like the last picture does… But how is 住宿 in any way related to put up? I actually googled 撒子豆花 right after I read this amazing post…:D 17. Ted said, November 4, 2011 @ 10:24 pm Lareina: in English, "put up" is idiomatic and has as one of its meanings "house" (v.t.). So "I put him up for a couple of nights" means "he was a guest in my house for a couple of nights." I actually understood this correctly through the logical chain "put up" –> "we can put you up" –> "rooms are available." 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Linguistic Lexicon for the Millenium, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 9:2, 2000 William O. Beeman Department of Anthropology Brown University Humor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involving, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoyment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display consisting of displays of pleasure including smiles and laughter.. The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity." Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or enactment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material. The tension between the original framing and the sudden reframing results in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that underlies humor, and the release of that tension-as Freud pointed out-is a fundamental human behavioral reflex. Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The audience, in order to enjoy humor must "get" the joke. This means they must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor and following the process of the creation of the humor. Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denouement, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist, creating tension. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process of realization and the release resulting therefrom. The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor. He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor involves the audience taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware of, and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Comedian Henny Youngman's classic one-liner: "Take my wife . . . please!" is an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-frames the word "take" showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduction to an example, and as a direct command/request. The double framing is completed by the word "please." The pause is crucial. It allows the audience to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. The content that is re-framed is of course the phrase "my wife." In this way the work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar. Both use misdirection and double-framing in order to produce a denouement and an effect of surprise. The response to magic tricks is frequently the same as to humor-delight, smiles and laughter with the added factor of puzzlement at how the trick was accomplished. Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punchline. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a conversational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punchline. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-verbal humor. Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke. Humor theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor, but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of humorous communication. Just as speech acts must be felicitous in the Austinian sense, in order to function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These performative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor creation. The setup must be adequate. Either the actor must either be skilled in presenting the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must successfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together, the humor fails. If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, tension release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most societies that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with humorous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured. One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative properties are adequately executed is-homage a Freud-that the purpose of the humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere; or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may be affected by the paradox as revealed in the denouement of the humor despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves (perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds offensive, another audience may find humorous. Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly, the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communication because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the same basic knowledge . In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences, and practice their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers and amateur raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a humorous presentation can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face. Further reading: Beeman, William O. 1981a Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theatre. Journal of American Folklore 94(374): 506-526. (special issue on folk theater. Thomas A. Green, ed.) 1981b A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran. In Bonine, Michael and Nikki Keddie, eds. Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986 Language Status and Power in Iran Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Freud, Sigmund 1953-74 Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. translated under the general editorship of James Strachy in collaboration with Anna Freud. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Norrick, Neal R. 1993 Conversational joking: humor in everyday talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Oring, Elliott 1992 Jokes and their relations. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky Sacks, Harvey 1974 An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 337-353. Willeford, William 1969 The fool and his sceptre: a study in clowns, jesters and their audience. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (c) 2000William O. Beeman. All rights reserved Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Joke File dots To comedians, "material" -- their jokes and stories -- has always been precious, worthy of protecting and preserving. On stage, a good vaudeville routine could last years as it was performed on tour across the country. In radio, a year's vaudeville material might be fodder for one week's broadcast. Bob Hope used new material not only for his weekly radio series, but also for the several live charity appearances he made each week. In the beginning of his career, Bob Hope wrote his own material, adapted jokes and comic routines from popular humor publications, or commissioned segments of his vaudeville act from writers. Over the course of his career Bob Hope employed over one hundred writers to create material, including jokes, for his famous topical monologs. For example, for radio programs Hope engaged a number of writers, divided the writers into teams, and required each team to complete an entire script. He then selected the best jokes from each script and pieced them together to create the final script. The jokes included in the final script, as well as jokes not used, were categorized by subject matter and filed in cabinets in a fire- and theft-proof walk-in vault in an office next to his residence in North Hollywood, California. Bob Hope could then consult this "Joke File," his personal cache of comedy, to create monologs for live appearances or television and radio programs. The complete Bob Hope Joke File -- more than 85,000 pages -- has been digitally scanned and indexed according to the categories used by Bob Hope for presentation in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment. Bob Hope in his joke vault Annie Leibovitz. Bob Hope in his joke vault. Photograph, July 17, 1995. Courtesy of Annie Leibovitz (197) Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File Jokes from Bob Hope's Joke File December 15, 1953 Typed manuscript with holographic notations Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Page 5 - Page 6 - Page 7 (c)Bob Hope Enterprises Bob Hope Collection Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division Bob Hope & His Comedy Writers Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1946. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (106b) Hope with Writers Bob Hope with writers, ca. 1950. Photograph. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (197a) Bob Hope was always candid about his reliance on his comedy writers, and generous with credit to them. The writers whose creativity and wit contributed to the Bob Hope Joke Files are: Paul Abeyta Howard Albrecht Buddy Arnold Bob Arnott Jeffrey Barron Ruth Batchlor Harvey Berger Bryan Blackburn Al Boasberg Martha Bolton Monte Brice Jim Carson Chester Castellaw Stan Davis Jack Donahue Marty Farrell Marvin Fisher Marshall Flaum Fred S. Fox Melvin Frank Doug Gamble Larry Gelbart Kathy Green Lee Hale Jack Haley, Jr. Chris Hart Stan Hart Edmund Hartmann Gig Henry Thurston Howard Charles Isaacs Seaman Jacobs Milt Josefsberg Hal Kanter Bo Kaprall Bob Keane Casey Keller Sheldon Keller Paul Keyes Larry Klein Buz Kohan Mort Lachman Bill Larkin Gail Lawrence Charles Lee James Lipton Wilke Mahoney Packy Markham Larry Marks Robert L. Mills Gordon Mitchell Gene Moss Ira Nickerson Robert O'Brien Norman Panama Ray Parker Stephan Perani Gene Perret Linda Perret Pat Proft Paul Pumpian Martin Ragaway Johnny Rapp Larry Rhine Peter Rich Jack Rose Sy Rose Ed Scharlach Sherwood Schwartz Tom Shadyac Mel Shavelson John Shea Raymond Siller Ben Starr Charles Stewart Strawther & Williger Norman Sullivan James Thurman Mel Tolkin Leon Topple Lloyd Turner Ed Weinberger Sol Weinstein Harvey Weitzman Ken & Mitzie Welch Glenn Wheaton Lester White Steven White dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Library of Congress Exhibitions - Online Survey - Library of Congress Home Page dots Library of Congress dome Library of Congress Contact Us ( July 22, 2010 ) Legal | External Link Disclaimer Bob Hope and American Variety HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! Sections: Early Life - Vaudeville - The Bill - Moving On - Bits & Sketches - Motion Pictures Radio - Television - Joke File - On the Road: USO Shows - Public Service - Faces of Bob Hope Vaudeville dots How to Enter Vaudeville Bob Hope's first tours in vaudeville were as half of a two-man dancing team. The act appeared in "small time" vaudeville houses where ticket prices were as low as ten cents, and performances were "continuous," with as many as six shows each day. Bob Hope, like most vaudeville performers, gained his professional training in these small time theaters. Within five years of his start in vaudeville Bob Hope was in the "big time," playing the expensive houses where the most popular acts played. In big time vaudeville there were only two shows performed each day -- the theaters were called "two-a-days" -- and tickets cost as much as $2.00 each. The pinnacle of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre, where every vaudevillian aspired to perform. Bob Hope played the Palace in 1931 and in 1932. All vaudeville comedy acts were dependent, in some part, on stock materials for inspiration. This tradition has continued in variety comedy entertainment in all of its forms, from stage to television, drawing upon what theater historian Brooks McNamara calls, "a shared body of traditional stock material." The situation comedies popular on television today are built from many of the same raw materials that shaped medicine and minstrel shows in the early nineteenth- century as well as shaping vaudeville. Stock materials include jokes and song parodies; monologs -- strings of jokes or comic lectures; bits -- two- or three-person joke routines; and sketches -- short comic scenes, often with a story. To these stock materials comedians add what cannot be transcribed in words, the physical comedy, or the "business" -- the humor of inflections and body language at which so many vaudevillians excelled. New York Palace Theatre The content of the vaudeville show reflected the ethnic make-up of its primary audience in complex ways. Vaudeville performers were often from the same working-class and immigrant backgrounds as their audiences. Yet the relaxation and laughter they provided vaudeville patrons was sometimes achieved at the expense of other working-class American groups. Humor based on ethnic characterizations was a major component of many vaudeville routines, as it had been in folk-culture-based entertainment and other forms of popular culture. "Blackface" characterizations of African Americans were carried over from minstrelsy. "Dialect acts" featured comic caricatures of many other ethnic groups, most commonly Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Audiences related to ethnic caricature acts in a number of ways. Many audiences, daily forced to conform to society's norms, enjoyed the free, uninhibited expression of blackface comedians and the baggy pants "low comedy" of many dialect acts. They enjoyed recognizing and laughing at performances based on their own ethnic identities. At the same time, some vaudeville acts provided a means of assimilation for members of the audience by enabling them to laugh at other ethnic groups, "outsiders." By the end of vaudeville's heyday, the early 1930s, most ethnic acts had been eliminated from the bill or toned down to be less offensive. However, ethnic caricatures continued to thrive in radio programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Life with Luigi, and The Goldbergs, and in the blackface acts of entertainers such as Al Jolson. Typical Vaudeville Program Program from the Palace Theatre Program from the Palace Theatre, New York, January 24, 1921. Reproduction. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9) Program from the Riverside Theatre Program from the Riverside Theatre, September 24, 1921. Oscar Hammerstein II Collection, Music Division (9.1) This program from New York's premier vaudeville theater shows how a typical vaudeville show was organized. It opens with a newsreel so latecomers will not miss a live act. The bill includes a novelty act--a singing baseball pitcher--a miniature drama, and a return engagement by a vaudevillian of years back, Ethel Levey, who was George M. Cohan's ex-wife. The headliners of this show at the Palace are Lou Clayton and Cliff Edwards. Clayton, a tap dancer, later appeared with Jimmy Durante and with Eddie Jackson. Edwards was a popular singer of the 1920s whose career was revived in 1940 when he sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. __________________________________________________________________ Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theatre, Indianapolis Ledger book from B.F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis, August 29, 1921-June 14, 1925. Handwritten manuscript, with later annotations. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10) Ledger from B. F. Keith's Theater, Indianapolis This ledger from Keith's Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, provides a detailed view of "big-time" vaudeville in the early 1920s. The weekly bill and the performers' salaries are listed on the lower left-hand page. Daily receipts are posted above the bill. Expenses make up the other entries. Bob Hope at the Palace Theatre This ledger book from the "big-time" Palace Theatre in New York documents the vaudeville acts on each week's bill, what each act was paid for the week, the name of the act's agent, and additional costs incurred by the performers. In February 1931, Bob Hope performed for the first time at the Palace Theatre. Comedienne Beatrice Lillie and the band of Noble Sissle also appeared on the bill. Hope took out two ads in Variety for that week; the ledger entry shows that the cost of these ads was deducted from his salary. In that same issue of Variety, the influential trade journal gave Hope's act a lukewarm, but prescient, review, stating, "He is a nice performer of the flip comedy type, and he has his own style. These natural resources should serve him well later on." Ledger book from the Palace Theatre Ledger book from the Palace Theatre, New York, February 27, 1928-April 23, 1932. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 Page 6 - Page 7 - Page 8 - Page 9 Page 10 - Page 11 - Page 12 - Page 13 Page 14 Handwritten manuscript. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (10A) __________________________________________________________________ Ad in Variety Ad in Variety Ads in Variety, February 25, 1931. Reproductions. General Collections (10B, 10C) __________________________________________________________________ 1929 Bob Hope Act Run-down Bob Hope always tinkered with his material in an attempt to perfect it. Throughout the Bob Hope Collection are Hope's own handwritten notes on scripts and joke sheets. This outline of his act, listing jokes, exchanges, and songs is on the back of a 1929 letter from his agent. Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's Notes Verso of letter from William Jacobs Agency with Bob Hope's notes on a routine, May 6, 1929. Holograph manuscript. (Page 2) Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (11) Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Brochure for "Siamese Twins" Daisy and Violet Hilton, ca. 1925. Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division (12) Hope's 1926 Vaudeville Tour In 1926 Lester Hope and George Byrne were booked on a tour in which the headliners were eighteen-year-old siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Sisters's show featured the twins telling stories of their lives, playing saxophone and clarinet duets, and dancing with Hope and Byrne. __________________________________________________________________ Lester Hope and George Byrne insert text here Publicity photograph of George Byrne and Lester Hope, ca. 1925. Copyprint. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13) insert text here Business card for Byrne and Hope, ca. 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (13a) The team of Lester Hope and George Byrne achieved considerable success from 1925 to 1927, touring the small-time vaudeville theaters with a dance act that they expanded to include songs and comedy. __________________________________________________________________ Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program Gus Sun Booking Exchange Program. Springfield, Ohio: Gus Sun Booking Exchange Company, 1925. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (15) Gus Sun Promotional Booklet In 1924, Bob Hope and his first touring partner, Lloyd "Lefty" Durbin, were booked in "tabloid" shows on the Ohio-based, small-time, Gus Sun circuit. "Tab" shows were low-budget, miniature vaudeville shows and musical comedies, which played in rural areas and small towns. Touring in vaudeville was never easy and in the small-time it could be particularly arduous. "Lefty" Durbin died on the road in 1925. Initially, it was thought that food poisoning was the cause. In fact, he succumbed to tuberculosis. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour This map represents one year of touring by Bob Hope on the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was Hope's first national tour, and his act was called Keep Smiling. Veteran gag writer Al Boasberg assisted in writing Hope's material. Hope recreated part of the act on a 1955 Ed Sullivan television program, which can be seen in the television section of this exhibit. Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour Map of Hope's 1929-1930 Vaudeville Tour. Created for exhibition, 2000 (18) Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script Page from Ballyhoo of 1932 script. Typed manuscript with handwritten annotations, 1932. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (22a) Ballyhoo of 1932 Script Page The Ballyhoo of 1932 revue starred Willie and Eugene Howard and Bob Hope. Similar to a vaudeville show, a revue usually consists of sketches, songs, and comedians, but has no overall plot. Unlike a vaudeville show, however, a revue runs for a significant period of time and may have a conceptual continuity to its acts. As this page indicates, Hope was the master of ceremonies in Ballyhoo. At the upper right, written in Hope's hand, is his remark to the audience about the opening scene of the revue. __________________________________________________________________ Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, New York Palace Theatre, New York, 1915. Copyprint. Courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America, Elmhurst, Illinois (22) __________________________________________________________________ The Stratford Theater, Chicago Advertisement for the Stratford Theater Advertisement for the Stratford Theater from the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1928. Detail of advertisement Reproduction. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34A) The Stratford Theatre, Chicago The Stratford Theatre, Chicago, ca. 1920. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society (17) As Hope and Byrne toured, they added more comedy to the act. When Hope found that he had a knack as a master of ceremonies, the act split, and Hope was booked as an "M.C." at the Stratford Theater in Chicago in an engagement that would be seminal to his career. A master of ceremonies is a host, the link between the performance and the audience-providing continuity between scenes or acts by telling jokes, introducing performers, and assuring that the entertainment does not stop even if delays occurred backstage. Hope was such a success as a master of ceremonies in this Chicago engagement that his initial two-week booking was extended to six months. __________________________________________________________________ Ziegfield Follies Program Ziegfeld Follies program with Bert Williams, 1912. Reproduction. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (23) Ziegfeld Follies Program, 1912 Florenz Ziegfeld broke the color barrier in theater by hiring Bert Williams for his Follies of 1910, in which Williams was a sensation. He appeared in most of the editions of the Follies mounted in the 1910s and was among Ziegfeld's top paid stars. __________________________________________________________________ "Tin Pan Alley" was a term given to West 28th Street in New York City, where many music publishers were located in the late nineteenth century. It came to represent the whole burgeoning popular music business of the turn of the twentieth century. Tin Pan Alley music publishers mass-produced songs and promoted them as merchandise. Composers were under contract to the publishers and churned out vast numbers of songs to reflect and exploit the topics of the day, and to imitate existing hit songs. Publishers employed a number of means to promote and market the songs, with vaudevillians playing a major role in their efforts. A Tin Pan Alley Pioneer This sentimental song was the first major hit of Tin Pan Alley composer Harry Von Tilzer (1872-1946). Von Tilzer claimed that his publisher paid him fifteen dollars for the song which sold 2,000,000 copies. He later founded his own publishing company. It was the tinny sound of Von Tilzer's piano which inspired the phrase "Tin Pan Alley" used to refer to music publishers' offices on West 28^th Street and further uptown, in the early twentieth century. My Old New Hampshire Home. Harry Von Tilzer. "My Old New Hampshire Home." New York, 1898. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c) Advertisement in Variety Advertisement in Variety, 1913. Reproduction. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (25b) Von Tilzer Music Company Advertisement Vaudeville performances of songs resulted directly in sheet music sales. Song publishers of the vaudeville era aggressively marketed their new products to vaudeville performers in a number of ways. "Song-pluggers," salesmen who demonstrated new songs and coaxed variety performers to adopt them, worked for all major music publishers. Ads such as this in the trade newspaper, Variety, reached on-the-road performers who were inaccessible to the pluggers. __________________________________________________________________ As Sung By . . . This is the Life, Version 1 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25a) This is the Life, Version 2 Irving Berlin. "This is the Life." New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1914. Sheet Music. Music Division (25c.1) In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, vaudeville performers were paid by music publishers to sing the publishers' new songs. Covers of popular sheet music in the early twentieth century featured photographs of the vaudeville stars, promoting the performer as well as the song. __________________________________________________________________ Orchestrating Success Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar Arrangements Harry Von Tilzer. "Latest Popular Mandolin, Banjo & Guitar Arrangements." New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Tilzer, 1901. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d) Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar T. P. Trinkaus. "Popular Arrangements for Mandolin and Guitar." New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1900. Sheet Music. Music Division (25d.1) To ensure that a publisher's song catalog received the widest possible dissemination and sales, publishers commissioned instrumental and vocal arrangements of new works in all combinations then popular. __________________________________________________________________ Bert Williams's Most Famous Song Nobody Alex Rogers and Bert Williams. "Nobody," 1905. Musical score. Music Division (24) Portrait of Bert Williams Bert Williams. Portrait of Bert Williams, 1922. Copyprint. Prints and Photographs Division (26) Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photo of Bert Williams Publicity photos of Bert Williams in costume, ca. 1922. Copy Prints. Prints and Photographs Division (27b, 27c) Bert Williams's most famous song was "Nobody," a comic lament of neglect that he first sang in 1905. Both Williams's first recording of the song and Bob Hope's version from The Seven Little Foys can be heard in the Bob Hope Gallery. __________________________________________________________________ Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's Dancing Shoes Eddie Foy's dancing shoes, ca. 1910. Courtesy of the Bob Hope Archives (28) Photograph of Eddie Foy Photograph of Eddie Foy, ca. 1910. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (28b) Bob Hope owns the dancing shoes of Eddie Foy (1854-1928), a vaudevillian who performed with his seven children. Hope produced and played Foy in the 1955 film biography, The Seven Little Foys. __________________________________________________________________ Houdini's Handcuffs and Key Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini's handcuffs with key, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Houdini Historical Center, Appleton, Wisconsin (28a) Harry Houdini's handcuffs with keys Harry Houdini, ca. 1899 McManus-Young Collection Rare Book and Special Collections (28c) Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, leg irons, straightjackets, prison cells, packing crates, a giant paper bag (without tearing the paper), an iron boiler, milk cans, coffins, and the famous Water Torture Cell. In most of these escapes, later examination showed no sign of how Houdini accomplished his release. __________________________________________________________________ "It's a Good World, After All" Musical Score for "It's a Good World After All" Gus Edwards. Musical score for "It's a Good World, After All," 1906. Musical score. Music Division (29) The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee Ernest R. Ball. "The Birds in Georgia Sing of Tennessee," 1908. Musical score. Music Division (29.1) Stock musical arrangements were created and sold by many music publishers for use by vaudevillians and other performers who could not afford to commission their own arrangements for their acts. __________________________________________________________________ Humor from Unexpected Pairings Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew. Will J. Harris and Harry I. Robinson. "Yonkle the Cow-Boy Jew." Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1908. Sheet music. Music Division (29a.1) I'm a Yiddish Cowboy Leslie Mohr and Piantadosi. "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy." New York: Ted. S. Barron Music, 1909. Sheet music. Music Division (29a) A common type of humor is based on unexpected juxtapositions or associations. This song shows how the technique can be reflected in music as well as in jokes. __________________________________________________________________ Joke Books Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations Yankee, Italian, and Hebrew Dialect Readings and Recitations. New York: Henry J. Wahman, 1891. Vaudeville Joke Books New Vaudeville Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. New Dutch Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Jew Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Ethnic Joke Books Chop Suey. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1909. Irish Jokes. Cleveland: Cleveland News, 1907. Dark Town Jokes. Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook, 1908. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (29b-h) In the early twentieth-century, jokes at the expense of women or of someone's national heritage and ethnicity were a staple of not only vaudeville but American life. This selection of humor books in this case shows that few groups were left unscathed. __________________________________________________________________ Source for Vaudeville Routines Vaudevillians often obtained their jokes and comedy routines from publications, such as Southwick's Monologues. Southwick's Monologues George J. Southwick. Southwick's Monologues. Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1903. Rare Book and Special Collections Division (30) Joke Notebook Richy Craig, Jr., Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31) Joke Notebook This binder, like many others in the Library of Congress Bob Hope Collection, contains jokes and sketches written in the early 1930s. Most of the material was written by a gifted comedian, Richy Craig, Jr., who wrote for Bob Hope as well as himself. Bob Hope's Joke Notebook The hotel front desk has been a very popular setting for sketch humor for more than a century. The Marx Brothers used it in The Cocoanuts, as did John Cleese in the British sitcom, Fawlty Towers. Bob Hope's sketch, shown here, is from a binder that contains jokes and bits written for him during his later years on the Vaudeville circuit. Most of the material was written by Richy Craig, Jr. Joke Notebook Joke Notebook, ca. 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (31.2) Censorship card Censorship card, May 27, 1933. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (37.1) "Act needs a lot of watching" As with network television today, vaudeville promoted itself as family entertainment, but its shows often stretched the limits of common propriety. This report from a Boston stage censor outlines some of the questionable material in Bob Hope's 1933 act and preserves some of the jokes the act included. The pre-printed form catalogs common offenses found in variety acts. Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930 The Bob Hope Collection includes more than 100 scrapbooks that document Hope's career. This one, said to have been compiled by Avis Hope, Bob Hope's mother, is the earliest. It includes many newspaper clippings relating to Hope and Byrne's tour with the Hilton Sisters. Brochure for Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton Bob Hope Scrapbook, 1925-1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (33) Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract Bob Hope's vaudeville tour contract, 1929. Page 2 Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (34) Hope's 1929 Contract Bob Hope's thirty-nine-week contract with the national Orpheum circuit included options for extension. The contract and tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, "Bob Hope and his Antics." Hope's 1930 Contract Bob Hope's national Orpheum circuit tour of 1930 and 1931 included options for extension. The tour resulted in the February 1931 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York of his mini-revue, Bob Hope and His Antics. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Bob Hope's vaudeville contract. Typewritten manuscript, 1930. Bob Hope Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Record Sound Division (34.1) Columbia Copyright Advertisement Advertisement for Columbia Copyright & Patent Company. The New York Clipper, November 3, 1906. Reproduction. General Collections (36) Copyright Advertisement from The New York Clipper Theft of vaudeville material was common enough that a legal firm advertised its copyright services in the theatrical newspaper, The New York Clipper. Railway Guide A railway guide was essential for the vaudevillian on the road. Railway Guide LeFevre's Railway Fare. New York: John J. LeFevre, 1910. General Collections (37) Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide Julius Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide. New York, 1910. Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (38) Travel Guides Annual guides such as Cahn's provided theatrical professionals with information about the technical specifications of theaters, railroads servicing every major city, and other useful information. Review of Hope's Act in Billboard, 1929 In 1929 Bob Hope put together a popular act which included a female partner, intentionally discordant comic instrumentalists, and Hope's singing and dancing. To augment the comedy he hired veteran vaudeville writer Al Boasberg to write new material. This act toured for a year on the Orpheum circuit. Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act Review of Bob Hope's vaudeville act, Billboard, Cincinnati: The Billboard Publishing Company, November 23, 1929. Reproduction. General Collections (40) How to Enter Vaudeville Frederic La Delle. How to Enter Vaudeville. Michigan: Excelsior Printing Company, 1913. Reproduction of title page. General Collections (41a) Vaudeville "How-to" Guide This 1913 mail-order course was directed toward aspiring vaudeville performers. Advice is included on "Handling your baggage," "Behavior toward managers," and "Eliminating Crudity and Amateurishness." Among the ninety types of vaudeville acts explained in the course are novelties such as barrel jumpers, comedy boxers, chapeaugraphy (hat shaping to comic effect), and "lightning calculators." dots HOME - Exhibition Overview - Object List - Public Programs - Credits - Learn More! 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More information here... J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct;99(4):660-82. A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. Hodson G, Rush J, Macinnis CC. Source Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada. ghodson@brocku.ca Erratum in * J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Feb;100(2):329. Abstract Past research reveals preferences for disparaging humor directed toward disliked others. The group-dominance model of humor appreciation introduces the hypothesis that beyond initial outgroup attitudes, social dominance motives predict favorable reactions toward jokes targeting low-status outgroups through a subtle hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth: cavalier humor beliefs (CHB). CHB characterizes a lighthearted, less serious, uncritical, and nonchalant approach toward humor that dismisses potential harm to others. As expected, CHB incorporates both positive (affiliative) and negative (aggressive) humor functions that together mask biases, correlating positively with prejudices and prejudice-correlates (including social dominance orientation [SDO]; Study 1). Across 3 studies in Canada, SDO and CHB predicted favorable reactions toward jokes disparaging Mexicans (low-status outgroup). Neither individual difference predicted neutral (nonintergroup) joke reactions, despite the jokes being equally amusing and more inoffensive overall. In Study 2, joke content targeting Mexicans, Americans (high-status outgroup), and Canadians (high-status ingroup) was systematically controlled. Although Canadians preferred jokes labeled as anti-American overall, an underlying subtle pattern emerged at the individual-difference level: Only those higher in SDO appreciated those jokes labeled as anti-Mexican (reflecting social dominance motives). In all studies, SDO predicted favorable reactions toward low-status outgroup jokes almost entirely through heightened CHB, a subtle yet potent legitimatizing myth that "justifies" expressions of group dominance motives. In Study 3, a pretest-posttest design revealed the implications of this justification process: CHB contributes to trivializing outgroup jokes as inoffensive (harmless), subsequently contributing to postjoke prejudice. The implications for humor in intergroup contexts are considered. PMID: 20919777 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Publication Types, MeSH Terms Publication Types * Randomized Controlled Trial * Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms * Adult * Aggression * Canada * Ethnic Groups/psychology * Factor Analysis, Statistical * Female * Group Processes* * Humans * Male * Models, Psychological * Motivation * Prejudice* * Psychological Tests * Regression Analysis * Reproducibility of Results * Social Dominance* * Social Identification * Wit and Humor as Topic* LinkOut - more resources Full Text Sources * American Psychological Association * EBSCO * OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center * Ovid Technologies, Inc. Other Literature Sources * COS Scholar Universe * Labome Researcher Resource - ExactAntigen/Labome * Supplemental Content Click here to read Related citations * Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006] Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Duckitt J. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 May; 32(5):684-96. * Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. [Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007] Perceptions of immigrants: modifying the attitudes of individuals higher in social dominance orientation. Danso HA, Sedlovskaya A, Suanda SH. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 Aug; 33(8):1113-23. Epub 2007 May 4. * Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? [Br J Soc Psychol. 2003] Attitudes toward group-based inequality: social dominance or social identity? Schmitt MT, Branscombe NR, Kappen DM. Br J Soc Psychol. 2003 Jun; 42(Pt 2):161-86. * Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. [Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006] Review A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice. Bigler RS, Liben LS. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2006; 34:39-89. * Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. [Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009] Review Commonality and the complexity of "we": social attitudes and social change. Dovidio JF, Gaertner SL, Saguy T. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 Feb; 13(1):3-20. See reviews... See all... Recent activity Clear Turn Off Turn On * A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate ... A joke is just a joke (except when it isn't): cavalier humor beliefs facilitate the expression of group dominance motives. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Oct ;99(4):660-82. PubMed Your browsing activity is empty. Activity recording is turned off. Turn recording back on See more... You are here: NCBI > Literature > PubMed Write to the Help Desk Simple NCBI Directory * Getting Started * NCBI Education * NCBI Help Manual * NCBI Handbook * Training & Tutorials * Resources * Chemicals & Bioassays * Data & Software * DNA & RNA * Domains & Structures * Genes & Expression * Genetics & Medicine * Genomes & Maps * Homology * Literature * Proteins * Sequence Analysis * Taxonomy * Training & Tutorials * Variation * Popular * PubMed * Nucleotide * BLAST * PubMed Central * Gene * Bookshelf * Protein * OMIM * Genome * SNP * Structure * Featured * GenBank * Reference Sequences * Map Viewer * Genome Projects * Human Genome * Mouse Genome * Influenza Virus * Primer-BLAST * Sequence Read Archive * NCBI Information * About NCBI * Research at NCBI * NCBI Newsletter * NCBI FTP Site * NCBI on Facebook * NCBI on Twitter * NCBI on YouTube NLM NIH DHHS USA.gov Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy | Accessibility | Contact National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD, 20894 USA #Latest People Sport The Mole Skip to main content area UK Edition Follow us: * Facebook * Twitter * Get 6 FREE issues of The Week The Week with The First Post Main menu * News+Opinion * Business * Arts+Life * People * Sport * Columnists * Pictures Must clicks * Madonna Lady Gaga world tours MUSIC: Madonna v Lady Gaga rival concerts * Great White SHark SHARKS: How to avoid an attack, or survive one * [stephen-hester.jpg] HIGH PAY: Hester considered quitting over bonus row * [crispin.jpg] BLACK: Boorish, brutal, charismatic Ian Paisley * Syrian opposition flag TALKING POINT: Is Syria ready for change? * [abu-qatada-2.jpg] EXTREMISM: Abu Qatada's 7 hate preachings * [lana-del-rey_0.jpg] MUSIC: Lana Del Rey cancels tour, but UK loves her * Mars ocean SPACE: Evidence of ancient ocean on Mars Home » People » Entertainment » Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Search _______________ (Search) Search Entertainment NEXT IN THIS TOPIC More like this 1 First Post Madonna Lady Gaga world tours Lady Gaga and Madonna vie for Queen of Pop title 2 One-Minute Read Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker Piers Morgan v Gary Lineker: clash of the football pundits 3 One-Minute Read Alex Hall Jeremy Clarkson a bully says his 'Minnie Mouse' ex-wife 4 Video M.I.A at Super Bowl MIA shows middle finger during Super Bowl halftime show 5 One-Minute Read Shah Rukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan in punch-up at Sanjay Dutt Bollywood party 6 One-Minute Read Mark Wahlberg I'd have beaten 9/11 terrorists says actor - before apologising 7 One-Minute Read [ODB.jpg] FBI releases files on Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan 8 Deja Vu Antony Worrall Thompson Worrall Thompson not the only star with sticky fingers News Top Gear ‘bigots’ slammed for lazy Mexicans joke Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately for Jeremy Clarkson, Mexican ambassador wasn't asleep and takes him to task over racist comments BY Natalie Davies LAST UPDATED AT 13:19 ON Wed 2 Feb 2011 In a month that has seen two TV personalities nailed for making offensive comments you'd think that even the provocative presenters of Top Gear would have the good sense to err on the side of caution, but no, not a bit of it. In an episode of the car review show watched by six million people on Sunday night, presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May insulted an entire nation by branding Mexicans as "lazy" and "oafish". Mexico's ambassador to London has demanded an apology after Hammond said that Mexican cars were typical of their countrymen, and went on to describe "a lazy, feckless, flatulent, oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat". Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza might well have seen the funny side of it had he not been personally targeted by Clarkson, who joked that they would not receive any complaints because the ambassador would be asleep. "It is utterly incomprehensible and unacceptable that the premiere broadcaster should allow three of its presenters to display their bigotry and ignorance by mocking the people and culture of our country with such vehemence," the ambassador wrote in a letter to the BBC. But in being singled out by Jeremy Clarkson, the ambassador is in good company. The Top Gear presenter called Gordon Brown "a one-eyed Scottish idiot" in 2009 - and before that he characterised lorry drivers as prostitute murderers in November 2008. · Read more about James May Jeremy Clarkson Richard Hammomd Top gear Get your six FREE trial issues of The Week now! Comments Very funny and entertaining, no mention of the drugs war thats ripping Mexico apart though, plenty of material there. Permalink Posted by Russell Miller, February 3, 2011 - 6:57pm. They're entertainers. If they'd been making jokes about the French nobody would have said a thing. It happens all the time. Yes, that doesn't make it right, but get a sense of humour, Mexico. You don't see British officials demanding an apology for every American TV presenter who suggests we all have bad teeth and crap food. Get a grip. Permalink Posted by Stuart Gilbert, February 3, 2011 - 10:42am. I'm sure the Top Gear guys will be traumatised by the uprising of an entire nation in annoyance at their petty pranks. And Mexicans might be a bit miffed too. Middle Aged Boors 1. Humourless Latinos 0. Permalink Posted by Dominic Wynn, February 3, 2011 - 2:27am. All I can say is "what an idiot". His show should be cancelled. Permalink Posted by Miguel Angel Algara, February 2, 2011 - 5:57pm. Where has all the humour gone? Long time passing... Where has all the humour gone? Long time ago... Where has all the humour gone? Died of political correctness every one They will never learn... They will never learn... Permalink Posted by Geoff Hirst, February 2, 2011 - 4:57pm. Clarkson has a go at everyone. He is the only person on TV to do so and the nation loves him for it. I wish people would lighten up and stop feeling so offended by everything. Where is the British sense of humour? Permalink Posted by Annie Harrison, February 2, 2011 - 4:48pm. These people sit around joking for an hour a week on fantastic pay. They know a lot about laziness. Projectionism. Given all the BBC resources, it was intellectually astonishing lazy not to come up with some better material for their program. Permalink Posted by Peter Gardiner, February 2, 2011 - 4:45pm. Comments are now closed on this article View the discussion thread. 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