Joke

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A joke is a short story or short series of words spoken or communicated with the intent of being laughed at or found humorous by the listener or reader. A practical joke differs in that the humour is not verbal, but mainly visual (e.g. putting a custard pie in somebody's face).

Jokes are performed either in a staged situation in front of an audience, or informally for the entertainment of participants and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter, although loud groans are a common response to some forms such as puns and shaggy dog stories.

Contents

1 Psychology of jokes
2 Types of jokes

2.1 Subjects
2.2 Styles

3 See also

Psychology of jokes

Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being:

Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings.
Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious".
Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyzes humor and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science.
Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986).

Marvin suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn Nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly.

Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990).

Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern matching machine, and that it works by recognizing stories and behavior and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example:

*Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter.

*Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line.

*Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behavior, thus saving time in the set-up.

*Why jokes are variants on well known stories (eg the genie and a lamp): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern.

In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [link].

Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthful in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural happiness-inducing chemicals, into the bloodstream.

One of the most complete and informative books on different types of jokes and how to tell them is Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor (1971), which encompasses several broad categories of humor, and gives useful tips on how to tell them, whom to tell them to, and ways to change the joke to fit one's audience.

Types of jokes

Jokes often depend for humour on the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or the playing on stereotypes and other cultural myths. Many jokes fit into more than one category.

Subjects

Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political cliches, mottos, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the you have two cows genre, derive humor from comparing different political systems. The biggest problem with political jokes tends to be that they get elected.

Professional humor includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other (e.g. Medical humor).

Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders.

Ethnic jokes exploit racial stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently offensive. Ethnic jokes are common, for example:

American jokes about Canadians or Poles
Canadian jokes about Newfoundlanders
British jokes about everyone, particularly the Irish
Argentinian jokes are about Spaniards, called gallegos = Galicians.
Iranian jokes about Turks in Iran
Australian jokes about the British and New Zealanders
New Zealand jokes about Australians
Brazilian jokes about the Portuguese
Portuguese jokes about both the Brazilian and Africans people, especially Mozambican and Angolian people
Russian jokes about Chukchi
Greek jokes about Pontian Greeks
Indian jokes about Sikhs are identical except for the ethnic group which is the subject of the joke.
Colombian jokes about Pastusos, or residents of the southern city of Pasto and the surrounding areas

The English also tell jokes starting "an Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish, or some combination.

Racially offensive humor is increasingly unaccaptable, but there are similar jokes based on other stereotypes such as blonde jokes.

Religious jokes fall into several categories:

Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. Nun jokes and Jewish jokes)
Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc.
Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..."
Letters and addresses to God.

Self-deprecating or self-effacing humor is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humor. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humor as a leveling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke.

Self-deprecating humor has also been used by politicians, who recognize its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?".

Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. Many dirty jokes are also sexist.

Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humor; to joke about disability is considered in this group.

Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit cognitive dissonance, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..

Styles

The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, lightbulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between..." joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts.

Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling.

A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with a weak or completely nonexistent punchline. The humor lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy".

See and

Joke

Psychology of jokes

Types of jokes

Subjects

Styles

See also