Wait. First let’s
agree on a definition of joke. Merriam-Webster says a joke is “something
said or done to provoke laughter, especially, a brief oral
narrative with a climactic, humorous twist
Cambridge says a joke
is “something, such as
a funny story or trick, that is said or
done in order to
make people laugh.”
Well, both definitions are a bit broad for my purposes. Let’s say a joke is a very short story with a surprise ending at which people are meant to laugh. That fits inside both definitions, and I’d like to stick with the verbal joke for now, although pranks often elicit laughter just like a “A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar” short story joke. (I’m so naïve; I recently had to ask a high school student what he meant when he said that students “pranked” a teacher. Prank has a verb form?? Who knew?)
(I could stop here and ponder what happens physically when we laugh, or why certain utterances precipitate that odd laughter phenomenon, but I won’t … well, except to say that laughter, like a good fart, seems to be therapeutic, physically and psychologically, and so the creator didn’t ponder long before deciding that mankind would be better off with these … what, capabilities? As we all know, farting and laughing each have the unique ability to trigger the other. An evolutionary bonus!)
But back to the joke.
(I just noted that my editing-help software underlined fart
and farting to warn me that, “This language may be offensive to your
reader.” If
that is your reaction, please read the words as flatulence and flatulating.
Editing-help software seems to feel you won’t
be offended by this nomenclature for the release of gas through the nether
channel. This is possibly a joke but would likely rate only a 2.5/10 on the
United Nation’s Joke Funniness Scale (JFS).
I will be using the JFS throughout.
Again: Let's get back to the joke.
One species of joke is the pun, a very mild verbal
irony such as, “When is a door not a door?” and the answer, “When it’s ajar.” Puns
seldom reach higher than 2/10 on the JFS, unless they reach a more complex
level of the ironical as in “I wondered why the frisbee looked bigger and
bigger as it approached, and then it hit me,” in which the “it hit me” idiomatic
expression must be appreciated for the verbal irony to register. I
would give this pun a rare 4.2/10 on the JFS.
Puns are sometimes characterized as children’s jokes, but
then, children need to laugh too, don’t they?
The English language has characteristics that make it a
smorgasbord of pun possibilities. So many words share a sound with other words, for instance, that puns
come far too easily. The Biblical "Balaam’s Ass" is a case in
point. Not that puns don’t exist in other languages: a German
cartoon has a hiker sitting under a road sign announcing Essen, eating a
sandwich.
At a higher level on the JFS scale are the situational
ironies, where the hearer is led (often at great length) down a path that has
to take him/her/their self to a certain ending … and then finds him/her/their self in a completely
unexpected place. I give the following joke a 7/10:
A Priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a bar
and seat themselves on bar stools. The waiter asks, “So what brings you out
here on a cold and rainy winter’s evening, to which the priest replies, “I’ve
been hearing confessions for hours and I needed a break.” The minister offers,
“I’ve been working for days on a sermon I just can’t get right, so I came here
for a much-needed break.” The
bartender says, “And you, Mr. Rabbit. Why are you here?” to
which the rabbit replies, “Spellcheck.”
I’ve rated this joke high on the scale because fancying
myself a pretty smart, above average knowledgeable, sophisticated guy, I got it
right away, while assuming that a mass of others would need to have it
explained. That makes me arrogant and self-absorbed and possibly delusional,
but the arrogant, self-absorbed, delusional population also need to laugh,
don’t they?
Situational ironies tickle our funny bones, but they
sometimes (or often?) include a sizeable bit of the banana peel syndrome, which
is the sadistic laughter arising from relief, relief that the person slipping
and falling after stepping on a banana peel may well be hurt, but the injury
and humiliation is not being suffered by us. It’s what allows us a chuckle when a
man with dementia puts his underwear on over his pants. We might well say that anyone laughing at such
a consequence of one of mankind’s most debilitating afflictions is an as**ole
and a misogynist. On the other hand, we all know that
our laugh-centres are triggered by situational irony like a teenaged boy’s
erection is triggered by, well, by a limitless banquet of suggestive thoughts
and imaginations ... and peeking.
You can hurt yourself by suppressing laughter—even when
aroused by misogyny. [i]
The banana peel joke has a more sinister side. It
lends itself to disguising either self-loathing or self-aggrandizing by making
others the victims of the banana-peel or the underwear-over-pants populations,
usually casting ethnic, class, or religious groups as subjects of such short-story
jokes. The
more people I’ve implicated in the underwear-over-pants group, and the clearer
the distinctions between me and them, the better.
The self-imprecating, banana peel joke says, “My
people have got some idiosyncrasies, but look what good sports we are about
it.” As
a misogynistic put-down, “The Polish man built the roof of his house first so
he wouldn’t get rained on while putting up the rest of the house,” has the
necessary irony of a reasonable joke, but the added ethnic tag is only
necessary if the teller has a need to gain self-esteem by a comparison to certain
others. It’s the strategy of appearing taller by standing next to
a short person.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus used to take
situational-irony jokes to the level of absurdity. I remember laughing like a
hyena at their antics while my wife sitting beside me was cracking not so much
as a hint of a smile. “That’s not funny, that’s just stupid.” It’s not that she’s without a sense of
humour, it’s just that we don’t necessarily find the same situations funny. We
talk about “English humour,” or “Cree humour,” and people who’ve experienced
those cultures know what we mean … sort of. What we laugh at says something
about us that could be telling. I imagine an aptitude test for the
purpose of a job interview that would consist of ten jokes that the applicant
would rate on the JFS scale, and which would yield a composite score resulting
in, “You’re exactly the person we’re looking for,” or its opposite. [ii]
A branch of joke telling especially dear to those who
make a living in what we call comedy, is satire. Broadly speaking, satire points out
flaws in institutions or persons using the basic format of the situational-irony
joke. The irony may also be contained in sarcasm, the taking down of a
person or institution with a deprecatory joke. “In
order to be recognized, a woman must do her job twice as well as a man.
Fortunately, this is not hard.” This is sarcastic satire; the
institution being brought down a peg is maleness. The sarcasm lies in the irony of the last
phrase: one expects, “... so women must work hard,” when the opposite forms
the gotcha punch line.
“Mr.
Churchill, you are drunk!”
“I
know ma’am, and you are ugly. Thing is, in the morning I’ll be sober!”
This epithet attributed to Winston Churchill (misquoted a
bit here) can rightly be called sarcastic, but it’s not satire. Had an observer noted that, “Miss
Farley, MP, addressed the prime minister in slanderous terms, but expressed her
gratitude later for the fact that her misguided diatribe was not heard by him
owing to his inebriated snoring,” that would have qualified as sarcastic
satirical comedy.
Writing good comedy, creating a memorable joke are not
easy assignments. In
part, that’s probably related most closely to the fact that there aren’t any original
options evident. Every short story—and that includes
every joke—is founded on human behaviour and as the preacher in Ecclesiastes
says: “What has been, will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, NIV) Indeed, a joke that is a “new thing” and not
just another, slightly different way of telling an old joke, is rare. Of
course, the spellcheck joke above had to wait for the computer to emerge, but if
your story joke involves a human misunderstanding of a concept and doing or
saying the exact opposite of whatever is accepted as normal is the result, well
then you have the forever core of what tickles our funny bones: a verbal or
situational irony.
I grew up in a home where jokes were valued, at least if
they were “clean jokes.” Dirty
meant sexual, blasphemous or unchristian, a vast field of prohibitions that
would have effectively gagged almost any stand-up comic doing the circuits
these days. I would, for instance, never have
dreamed of telling my mother this joke:
Mother Superior arrives at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter
challenges her with a skill testing question before allowing her to pass
through.
“What was the
first thing Eve said when she saw Adam?”
Puzzled, the
Mother Superior responds, “Wow! That’s a hard one!”
And St. Peter
says, “Good answer. Enter into your eternal reward.”
We boys, of course, repeated dirty jokes all the
time, hoping to chip away, no doubt, at the shell containing us with our pooled
ignorance and undefined longings. Someone must have made the connection among “dirty” jokes, deathbed and
black humour, sarcasm and satire with the literal fears that haunt us every day.
I’d call it our “whistling through the graveyard” response.
Perhaps, even, it’s fear that is the thread tugging on our funny bones. [iii]
A friend has said more than once that she laughed so hard,
she peed her pants. In our family (as, no doubt, in any functioning family)
laughter has been known to be so spontaneous and infectious that it’s called a laughing
fit. Laughter
feels good, next only to singing in its therapeutic benefits. Or maybe, it’s
the other way ‘round.
I wish that every parliamentary session, every sermon, every chapter of the Bible, every school day, every birthday celebration and funeral, every newscast would end with a rousing belly laugh. Since March 2020, we’ve been suffering through a laughter famine. Enough already!
Finally, I’ve translated an item from a German website
headed “Deutsche Witze,” (German
Jokes) Rate it on the JFS scale, identify the irony, think about the ethnic
content, whatever you like. Any sarcasm, satire here?
A native German drives into a gas station. He notices
that some of the numerous attendants are wearing green and some blue overalls.
“Why is everyone walking around in either green or blue overalls?” the German
native asks the owner.
“Well, the ones in green are Czechs. They’re so stupid I
have to label them.” He walks up to one in green and says, “Hey go home and see
if you’re there!” The Czech jumps on his moped and drives home.
The German citizen says, “Wow! He really is stupid. He could so easily have phoned!”
[i] I decided to do some research on this
latter point, then changed my mind.
[ii] I decided to do some research on this
latter point, then changed my mind.
[iii] I decided to do some research on this
latter point, then changed my mind.
