Jokes – vocabulary and explanations
Vocabulary
To know sth off the top of your head – informal – just spontaneously, without having to think about it.
Eg I don’t know where he lives off the top of my head – but I’ve got it written in my diary.
The punchline – the last part of a story or a joke which explains the meaning of what has happened previously or makes it amusing. Sometimes people forget the punchline, or get it wrong, so the joke doesn’t come off.
to come off – to be successful, to succeed
deadpan – adj – looking or seeming serious when you are telling a joke – you can have a deadpan expression or voice. You may notice that one of the two girls listening to the jokes has a ‘deadpan’ voice’ – but she is also the one of the two who sometimes doesn’t ‘get’ the jokes. This may be because she is Swedish, and doesn’t have the same ‘culture’ that informs the jokes.
An in-joke is one which can only be enjoyed by people in a certain group, in an in-crowd, who have a shared background. If you hear the phrase ‘Sorry, that’s a bit of an in-joke’ it will mean someone knows you can’t understand a joke just related because you don’t know the background to it, so is apologising to you.
Different types of jokes!
Jokes which depend on certain known formulae which then have variations.
"How many …………. does it take to change a light bulb?" is one of these. Sometimes the answers are formulaic too, " I don’t know, how many ……….. does it take?" or, ‘I don’t know, what is orange and dangerous?’
A "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke is another standard opening for a series of different answers.
The first, original joke has an obvious answer and is not funny at all:
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.
Usually this would be told to start a series of other similar jokes with different punchlines.
A "doctor, doctor joke" is one which always starts with the same words – "Doctor, doctor……… "
Jokes about steretypes
In the first joke about the number of safety inspectors it takes to change a light bulb, this is a joke about excessive safety regulations which are enforced by safety inspectors! It’s saying that needing 3 people just to hold a ladder in place is obviously over-the-top (= excessive, unnecessary), but the safety rules demand it.
The joke about civil servants makes fun of the excessive paperwork associated with bureaucrats, so it is along the same lines as the previous one!
The joke about the number of Americans it takes to screw in a light bulb – whose answer is unclear in the recording pokes fun at the ‘supposed’ American habit of feeling inferior to Canadians.
The joke about Italians sprinkling a lightbulb with Parmesan refers to the Italian habit of sprinkling food with Parmesan cheese.
The joke about Anglicans changing lightbulbs is a joke at the expense of the Anglican church, implying that it resists change, and always prefers the old ways of doing things.
Jokes which play on the idea of absurdity
The "What’s …….. and …………? style of jokes is based on completely absurd answers which you couldn’t possibly guess; for example, there is no such thing as shark-infested custard (custard sauce with sharks swimming around in it). This means there are variations which are just as absurd –
eg What’s green and goes up and down?
A gooseberry in a lift. (It could be anything green.)
A joke which is a play on words:
The joke about the skeleton having nobody to dance with is a play on words, on the fact that ‘no body’ sounds exactly the same as ‘nobody’.
A joke which is a play on a well-known saying being changed slightly:
The joke about the Eskimos who can’t have their kayak and heat it is a play on the saying ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’. To ‘want to have your cake and eat it’ is to want to have or do two things at the same time that are impossible to have or do at the same time.
Eg He wants to have a job with few responsibilities, but then he wants to earn a good salary as well – he just can’t have his cake and eat it."
A joke where you just start telling something funny and you don’t require an answer
The joke about the man going to the doctor’s with a strawberry growing out of his head is an example of this – did you notice ‘A man’ was shorted to ‘Man’ – this is also typical. The joke is another example of something ridiculous (a strawberry growing out of his head) which sets up the joke and immediately tells the listener a joke is coming.