Category Archives: Humor

Self Importance Proverb

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 54
Performance Date: 2/20/23

Text: “The Cemetery is full of people who couldn’t be replaced” 

Context: 

My dad told me he remembers hearing this from his father on occasion. He describes it as a reminder that you can always be fired or replaced, and not to take yourself too seriously. He notes that it was essentially a warning about excessive self importance. My dad remembers being met with this phrase if he was being big headed, or cocky. 

Analysis:

This phrase is somewhat of a cross between a proverb and a dark joke. It’s not metaphorical in the typical sense of a proverb, but it uses pre-formulated language to communicate the largely agreed upon idea, that excessive self importance is a bad thing. It’s interesting to note that my grandfather grew up Christian in the Midwest on a farm. This community typically frowns on self importance, so his use of the phrase may reveal rural Christian American beliefs. Then there is the other aspect of this phrase, which is that it makes light of mortality, and the dissolving of identity through death.This phrase falls into the camp of dark humor, which as a genre serves a few societal purposes. It’s possible to apply Peter Narvaez’s idea that in the television age, we are inundated with images of death and destruction while being told that we should mourn for individuals who we have no direct relation to. Dark humor becomes a way of rebelling against the societal pressure to mourn, as well as the institutions that put these tragedies in front of us on a daily basis. In addition, jokes about death such as this one, deal with the inescapable fact that no matter what, death is inevitable. Unlike Narvaez, I also believe that dark humor serves another purpose as a coping mechanism to deal with heavy subjects such as mortality. 

Nun Riddle

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 48
Primary Language: English

Text: 

Q: “What’s black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and red all over”

A: “A nun falling down the stairs” 

Context:

My aunt describes hearing this on the school bus riding to and from middle school. She mentions that sometimes the joke was preceded with the well known riddle, “what is black and white and red all over”, to which a classmate would answer, a “newspaper”. Then the asker would propose the above question. 

Analysis:

The above text is a cross between a riddle, and a dark joke in my interpretation. Going off of Oring’s argument, riddles question reality, disrupting the rigid categories we use to control the world. They transcend our perception of reality, which is an act of rebellion in itself. This riddle could certainly serve this purpose. An important factor beyond this interpretation, is that the joke/riddle was circulated among children. It’s a widely held folkloric idea that children’s folklore often rejects institutions. This is because children are so highly institutionalized on a day to day basis, especially in a school setting, where this joke/riddle was told. Another societal function that riddles serve in some cultures is to aid in education. Their structure is helpful for practicing memorization, and they provide an exercise in logical thought, as well as language manipulation. Interestingly, this joke subverts a well known riddle, to which the answer is “a newspaper”. I could see this subverted riddle emerging partly as a way of rejecting the institution that is public school, and its education tactics. Additionally, the subject of the joke/riddle is a nun. Nun’s are representative of yet another institution, one of Christianity. Of course there is also the basic factor of this joke being slightly gruesome and dark, referring to blood and injury. This could be an example of Narvaez’s idea of rebelling against societal pressure to mourn foreign tragedies. But it is also likely that children would gravitate towards gruesome or dark humor simply because it is not what the institution deems “school appropriate”. 

Text: 

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 54
Performance Date: 2/20/23
Primary Language: English

“A moil was retiring and at the end of his career. He went to a tailor, and said ‘I’ve been saving the foreskins from all of the circumcisions I’ve performed in my career.’ ‘I would like you to make something for me out of them.’ He hands the tailor a jar filled with these foreskins. The moil comes back in a week and the tailor hands him a wallet. He said ‘that’s it?’, ‘All of that material and it’s just a wallet?’ The tailor says, ‘rub it, it turns into a suitcase’”. 

Context: 

This is a joke my dad heard from his “old dirty grandfather” when he was young. He prefaced the joke by explaining that a moil is a rabbi that performs circumcisions. Both my dad and his grandfather are Jewish. 

Analysis: 

This text qualifies as a dirty joke in that it deals with socially taboo material such as circumcision, genitalia, and masturbation. This joke toys with what is socially acceptable, especially told to a relatively young child. It is humorous because it is shocking and a little bit grotesque. Telling jokes with “dirty” material is an act of rebellion against social norms, which explains some of the appeal. I also can see this joke as told in this setting as an initiation, or a rite of passage. The fact that this joke was told to my dad at a young age by his grandfather leads me to believe that there was some sort of knowledge exchange or initiation occurring, from an older male member of the Jewish community, to a younger member. Puberty can be seen as a significant rite of passage, and this joke which discusses circumcision, genitalia, and alludes to masturbation, could be an unofficial signifier of male coming of age. This joke is likely only told in male jewish spaces, given that it deals with a Jewish tradition that only applies to males. It could be an indicator of comradery and masculinity in these spaces. In a way, by telling this joke to my dad, his grandfather introduced him to this boys club, signifying his coming of age. It is also interesting that the joke deals with circumcision, which is done at a young age, along with a reference to masturbation, which typically is associated with puberty. 

Bathroom Light Prank

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/23/23
Primary Language: English

Text: From “around the ages 6 to 9,” BD and her friends would pull a prank in which they would go into the girls’ bathroom at school and, while people were in the stalls, turn off all the lights and run away. 

Minor Genre: Prank / Practical Joke

Context: BD is a 21 year old student at USC from Santa Monica, California. She told me that she thinks this prank is “pretty classic,” in that a lot of girls her age did this both at her school and at other schools. She said that everyone, including her, would always scream when the lights would go out like that. She remembers the feeling very well, and says that the prank still follows her through life. Even though she doesn’t scream out loud anymore, she told me that she feels the same sense of initial fear that tied into the general childhood fear of darkness, mirrors, and all the things that children do in bathrooms to scare one another. 

Analysis: I agree with BD that this is a common prank. It is interesting to analyze why so many children across cities, states, and even nations share this urge to engage in fearful activities in the bathroom. I think that part of allure of practical jokes is the aspect of mischief which, especially for children learning the thrill of being naughty, adds to the humorous outcome. Many trains of thought assert that humor comes from incongruity, and this definitely applies to this situation. While kids are being taught how to behave and to be entities in the world, the incongruity of mischief is exactly the type of exciting humor that brings them joy. Pulling any prank is mischievous, but pulling a prank in the bathroom – a space that is newly meant to be taboo because of its shared nature in schools – adds to that feeling exponentially. 

Tiger in Chinese Knock Knock Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego, California, United States
Performance Date: 2-23-2023
Primary Language: English

Text:

Informant: knock, knock

Me: Who’s there

Informant: Lao

Me: Lao who

Informant (chuckling): You just said tiger in Chinese.

Context:

The informant made this joke in 2nd or 3rd grade while learning Chinese. The joke is based on the fact that the Chinese word for tiger 老虎 (Lǎohǔ) is pronounced very similarly to “Lao who?”

The Informant notes that it is the only joke they’ll have on hand should someone ask them for a joke. I did just that and thus received this joke.

Analysis:

Though original, this joke clearly fits into the wider genre of jokes and riddles connecting similar sounds/pronunciations to their divergent meanings across languages. Especially with children (likely because they are learning and seeking to understand the languages they hear and speak), it is common to see linguistic exploration like this. there is also the common desire among young speakers to have a trick to their words or a “gotcha” as their punchline.