A string walks into the bar. It goes up to the bar and the bartender says, “Sorry we don’t serve your kind here.” The string goes, “Okay, fine then, I’ll leave” and storms out, mad. The string is upset he couldn’t get in so he comes up with an idea that he’ll disguise himself, so he ruffles up his hair, he ties himself, and then he walks into the bar again, he sits down, and the bartender goes, “Aren’t you that string I just kicked out of here?” And the string goes, “No. I’m a frayed knot.”

Informant’s dad told it to her. She found it so funny. She likes that it’s punny and unexpected. Her dad would tell it to her over and over again. His dad told it too.

This joke is a type of one I’m very familiar with, the “something or someone walks into a bar” genre of jokes. However, while the informant was telling me this one I was surprised when she told me that it was a string who walked into the bar and I was confused and curious to see where it was going. It doesn’t get much explanation, it’s just setup for the punchline but I thought it was an interesting take on the genre of jokes. One thing I noticed about the way my informant told me about this jokes was that the first thing she did before telling me was warning me that it was kind of long, and she struggled to get it out smoothly, as she had to recall parts of it and how it went. It’s interesting to analyze how these jokes might be used in comparison to short, one-line jokes. They’re mainly used in situations where the teller knows they can keep the listener’s attention for long enough, and are almost story-like.

“I’m going to the boats this weekend.”

The boats is the casino. Before gambling was legal, you could do it in the river, but you couldn’t do it on land. All the casinos used to be on boats. Her parents would say it when she was a kid and she would be so confused. Everyone in Kansas City knows what it means.

I think this folk speech is interesting because it represents how a certain population worked around restrictions that they had, and that became ingrained into their culture. It is also important to look at how the phrase has remained and lasted in the culture even well past the time when it needed to, so the phrase became so widespread and ingrained during the times that casinos were on boats that it couldn’t just leave the vernacular of the people.

“What did the candle say to the other candle?” “You going out tonight?”

Informant’s dad told it to her. He would bring it up at family dinners or at backyard barbeques. She didn’t find it funny at all, because it was a dad joke. Some people would laugh at it and some people would be like “oh my god that’s such a dad joke.” It was used as an icebreaker.

What struck me the most from this collection was the informant telling me about the varied reactions that the “dad joke” would get. The “dad joke” genre is one that has always been strange to me, because I haven’t always been able to categorize jokes into it, and people would call things dad jokes that I didn’t realize were. But I think the way the dad jokes cause reactions in people is important to analyze, because it impacts the way the memories of the joke live in people. Some people enjoy them and find them genuinely funny, meanwhile others will groan at them and find them cheesy. Nonetheless, most people will have a pretty strong stance on dad jokes, which reflects that they have a strong impact on people.

“Tables are for glasses, not asses.”

Informant’s Sicilian grandma would say this to her when she sat on the table. She would say it a lot because she was always sitting on the table. At the time, informant was mad about being told that. Now, after her grandma has passed, she laughs at it because it’s a nice memory.

This proverb is one that guides the listener to behave in a certain manner, because it is what is seen as proper in society. People don’t like when you sit on tables, and it’s seen as rude, so this rather crude proverb is used to advise on the way to conduct yourself with such furniture. It gives direct advice about what you should and shouldn’t use tables for, so it fits with the societal purpose of proverbs to impart advice onto someone. The way in which this informant learned of this proverb also fits with the typical passing of them, from someone older to someone younger, and even more so that it’s done through family.