Category Archives: Humor

The Irishman and his brothers

Nationality: United States
Age: 21
Occupation: Student/Comedian
Residence: New York, NY
Performance Date: 04/03/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, BH, was born in the US. The following piece is a joke he learned from his father (who is of Irish descent). BH currently is a comedian and loves to hear jokes from other people in order to “steal them for his own stand-up.” This joke is one he stole from his dad.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend where we exchanged jokes.

BH: Okay so, a man walks into a bar —

Me: (laughs) Oh God —

BH: A man walks into a bar and orders 3 drinks. When the bartender brings him his drinks he starts drinking them one sip at a time. When he’s done with the drinks he slams his glass on the table and orders three more. And — And the bartender is like “Dude, I can give you three drinks one after the other and they’ll stay cold. You don’t have to drink them all at once.” Then the man explains that he’s drinking 3 drinks because he has two brothers — one in America and one, I don’t remember, somewhere else — and every night they all drink three drinks in celebration of each other. The bartender shrugs and gets him his drinks. So a few weeks pass. The guy comes in again but this time order two drinks. The bartender notices and is like “Oh, did one of your brothers die?” and the guy takes a long sip out of both of his glasses and says “No but I quit drinking.” 

THOUGHTS: At first I didn’t really get the joke, but BH eventually explained to me the stereotype of Irish people being avid drinkers. With that information, I finally understood the punchline — the man in the joke claims to have quit drinking only to continue showing up to the bar every night to drink by the pair. BH elaborated further on the stereotype, bringing to my attention that the joke could also be that a real Irishman would never give up drinking. Regardless, it is interesting how people have paired humor with alcohol. “A man walks into a bar” jokes are some of the most iconic jokes right behind knock-knock jokes. 

The embodiment of the Italian spirit in a Meme

Nationality: Italian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bologna
Performance Date: 04/26/2021
Primary Language: Italian
Language: English

Main piece:

L.L.:Ok so. [laughs] Every-time I see this meme I start to laugh. [laughs again] Basically there is this gif, which has now become also a sticker that we send to each other in chats, where there is the woman, I think she is a television’s reporter or something like that. Hum…anyway, she basically looks directly into the camera and does all these gestures and facial expression which are simply hilarious to me. Probably because it perfectly portrays the way I and the majority of other Italians act. And, I don’t know. To me it’s funny because I associate it with the daily online conversations I have with my friends and how we use it to simply represent what we would be doing if we were face to face. Also, [laugh again] it’s so funny because it has now become a thing we do “live”, so we basically mimic the woman, who is not doing anything special or different from what we would actually do normally. But I don’t know, when we now do those kinds of gestures, all the people of my generation know who are we referring to…It became a sort of national indirect joke, I guess. 

Background:

My informant is a 19 year old girl who was born in Crotone, Calabria(Southern Italy), but who spent most of her lifetime in Bologna (Italy). She is a dear-fiend of mine, with whom I have daily conversations both on the internet and off. This piece of cyber folklore is actually fairly recent and it came to her attention both through conversations with some friends and thanks to social networks. She particularly enjoys this piece because -as many trends do- it perfectly portrays the general atmosphere of the moment in which it became viral and, at the same time, it is able, somehow, to picture in a couple of frames, typical gestures, expressions and attitudes of the average Italian.

Context:

I myself entered in contact with this piece in the last few months, and we were imitating it during a lunch when I though it would be a good idea for my informant to talk about it and describe it to me. My closest friends and I use these kinds of meme/stickers quite often during online conversations, usually with the intention of either portray on a chat our physical behaviors and expressions, or maybe ‘soften’ more serious topics.     

Thoughts:

I consider this meme quite interesting for various reasons. First of all, it was originally taken from a television clip and re-created by other people-especially teenagers and young folks- on social platforms like Tik Tok or Instagram. Later on, it was transformed in various forms of cyber-folklore, like memes and stickers, which, again, young people started to exchange on chats and online conversation with the main objective of portraying their current facial and body expression also in a written chat. This, in my opinion, perfectly reflects folklore’s definition of “Multiplicity and variation”, it having been transformed and utilized ‘vernacularly’ in various different ways. At the same time, it can also be said to be a sort of new and innovative format of “artistic communication” in small groups, it having been re-crafted in various ways throughout the short-period of time from its creation. 

Secondly, I find it really compelling from a cultural and national point of view. The woman which gesticulates and has such strong facial expressive articulations is able to supremely depict the Italian way of communicating which, despite the sometimes erroneous stereotypes, still talks a lot through hand-gestures and “visual phrasings”. 

I believe this meme -and its affiliated stickers- to be extremely representative of my nationality and this is why I will probably never get tried of using it.

Pierino and his grandma

Nationality: Italian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bologna, Italy
Performance Date: 04/26/2021
Primary Language: Italian
Language: English

Main piece:

“Un giorno Pierino esce con la nonna e Pierino raccoglie una moneta per terra e la nonna gli dice: “Pierino non si raccolgono le cose per terra”. Allora Pierino la rimette dove stava. Ad un certo punto la nonna cade e dice a Pierino: “tirami su” e Pierino dice: “non posso nonna hai detto che non si raccolgono le cose per terra”.

Transliteration and Translation: 
One day Pierino goes out with his grandmother and picks up from the ground a coin, and his grandmother tells him: “Pierino, you must not pick up things from the ground”. Therefore, Pierino puts it back. At a certain point, the grandmother falls and tells to Pierino “lift me up” and Pierino answers:”I can’t grandma, you told me that I must not pick up things from the ground”

Background:

L.L.: I used to tell this to my grandmother all the time. At elementary school, everyday a different classmate of mine would come up to the others and tell “guys I absolutely have to tell you this new joke I have learnt, so that we then can tell it to our parents”. Often, these jokes had things like curse words within them…and, I don’t know, it was a form of rebellion, like something a bit transgressive so to obtain a shocked reaction from adults.

Context:

My informant told this joke this over a dinner, in which other friends were present, and, after the performance of the piece, they all started to talk about their infants memories related to this kind of humor.

Thoughts:

As many other categories, jokes as well are a big part of children’s folklore as they often represent -as my informant highlighted- a tool through which shocking or simply outsmarting parents and adults. Jokes are, indeed, ‘by definition’ a practice commonly used to sign a rite of passage, and, in the case of kids, they were and still are a means to approach adulthood and the liminal ages of growth. This joke, if read or heard by an adult, won’t probably be as funny as a child perceives it, and this is attributable to the fact that what makes it especially hilarious to the youngest is the sense of rebellion, audacity and ‘adulthood’ they gain from it.

Many are the childish jokes which portray this Pierino as main protagonist, and this shows another indicative aspect, which is the one of recognition in a specific figure by multiple members of a peer group. Pierino is, in fact, a nickname for Piero, which is one of the most common Italian names of all, and this makes of him a sort of spokesman for every Italian children going though his age. 

Ummarell

Nationality: Italian
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bologna
Performance Date: 04/23/2021
Primary Language: Italian

Main piece:

Ummarell

Transliteration in Italian: omarello, omino, ometto

Transliteration in English: little man

Translation: old man who is retired 

M.P.: This is a typical Bolognese expression, which indicates those old men who are like retired and spend their time looking at construction sites. In the common imaginary they are portrayed in their typical pose, with crossed hands behind their backs.

[gets up laughing and mimics the physical pose]

And yes, this word actually entered the slang of the city because it is sometimes used also as a…a sort of joking insult. Like if someone…I don’t know…If someone acts like an old man, or stops in front of building sites, or repeatedly walks with his hand crossed behind his back, friends will make fun of him saying things like “Do not act like an ummarell”. 

Background:

My informant is a 23 years old girl who was born in Bologna, Italy, and who is now getting her master degree in archaeology and Egyptology at the city’s university, and who got her bachelor degree in anthropology and oriental studies 2 years ago always at Bologna’s Alma Mater Studiorum. She does’t recall the exact place and time in which she learnt this word, and neither she remember the first source from which she heard this term, she just knows it is a fundamental part of her “folk-culture”, as she herself defined it.

Context:

I myself use a lot this word and my informant mentioned this piece while we were chatting at a restaurant in the city center of Bologna.

Thoughts:

Something I have always found quite intriguing is the great amount of dialects present in the Italian peninsula. Every region has its own peculiar and proper dialectal speech, and while in some places, especially small towns, they are still spoken -particularly by the older generations-, in bigger cities, dialects have been transformed into slang and adapted to the official language, that is, Italian. In fact, every main city of every Italian region -there are 20 regions in Italy- has words that are typical to that city -or the surrounding area- only. In the majority of cases, these words are not used or even understood by people who do not belong to that community. 

Furthermore, these words tend to evolve from generation to generation, so it happens that only peer groups understand what is being said or meant through that term. 

In these ways, they can be said to perfectly reflect folklore’s definition of “multiplicity and variation”.

Ummarell, precisely, is one of these folk-terms as, deriving from the Emilian dialect, it’s used by people inside the colloquial lingo to represent not only the old retired men who stop at every building site they encounter -as the original meaning implies-, but also all those people who act in this way. 

It becomes an informal way of making fun of a person who act as an old man, or that has the same behavior of old retired man. In this way, a sort of generational division is created, as the youth makes fun of peers pejoratively associating it with the elderly. 

Additionally, it is also used to indicate those who are nosy and who, not having much to do in their spare-time, do useless stuff like watching construction sites and giving unrequested advices to the ones who are working.

American Wedding Pranks

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 04/28/2021
Primary Language: English

I: Informant, M: Me

I: A common tradition amongst most groomsmen, is to goof on the groomsmen [correction: meant groom]. To do some kind of practical joke. It’s usually done  the night before, sometimes its during the reception, sometimes its done right before they get married. Like when I married [name blanked for privacy]

M: yeah

I: [name blanked for privacy] My best man and I drank two very large tequila shots together toasting the end of my single life and beginning of my new wonderful life and he asked me as we did the shot are you sure you want to get married *laughs*.

…. What we did for [blanked name- will use Pedro] was unusual. Pedro, the night before I got ahold of his shoes. And when you go infringe of a Catholic Church to get married sometimes you face with the priest in between you.

….. So I was sitting next to [bride’s] grandparents who were extremely, extremely conservative and we are in the front row, the second row watching them get married. Now normally they sit like this. But what Pedro and [Bride] were doing is the were walking up to the alter and getting on their knee in front of G-d and in front of the priest and when he got on his knees, his shoes, his heels would be up and the bottoms of his shoes would be showing and of course the shoes are brand new. So I wrote in black permanent marker on the bottom of his shoes, HELP on the left shoe and ME on the right shoe and it was witnessed for all to see. Pedro thought it was funny as hell. I assure you that the bride’s parents thought it was anything but.

Context: This informant has not only been married and experienced the wedding pranks/jokes, but has also participated in creating one when he was a groomsman.

Analysis: The wedding in America represents the transition from childhood and adulthood. Thus, while in the midst of the ceremony or right before, the ‘groom/bride’ is in this liminal place where he/she isn’t quite married, but isn’t quite just an engaged couple anymore. They are in the process of taking on a new identity as married adults. Pranks/joke/riddles and various other traditions are common in other liminal states and serve to test you, prepare you, and help you transition into ease your new identity, married adulthood in this case. Typically pranks/jokes have to be done by somebody close to the person being pranked or else it is no longer considered well-intended and all in good fun, but can be upsetting and discomforting if someone you aren’t close with pranks/jokes you. It’s as if they haven’t earned the right to set things slightly awry. That’s why, it makes perfect sense that the groomsmen would play pranks/jokes on the groom given those are typically some of the closest guys to him in his life.