Tag Archives: doctor

The Sexist Doctor Riddle

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Graphic Designer
Residence: Massachusetts
Performance Date: March 15, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian, Spanish

The following is a riddle my informant told to me:

A man and his son were driving down an icy road. When they took a corner, the car flipped. After a while, two ambulances came, one took the father to a hospital in the west, the other took the son to an hospital in the east. The nurses rushed the son into surgery, because he was losing a lot of blood. The doctor entered, and after looking at the boy exclaimed: ” I can’t operate on this boy, he is my son!” How can this be?

Answer: The doctor is the boy’s mother

My informant told me that he tells this riddle often at parties or to his kids’ friends. Half of the time people guess the answer right away, but the other half of the time it completely stumps them.

When I first heard this riddle from my informant I could not figure it out. I thought it had to do with the sun rising, or another meaning of the word: “son”. As it turns out, it just reflected how the term “doctor” is still associated more with men than with women. I believe that this riddle is important because it pokes fun at the sexism of American society.

Proverb Parody – American

Nationality: Caucasian with Irish and Italian ancestry
Age: 29
Occupation: English Student
Residence: Tujunga, Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational Spanish

The informant says he learned the following proverb parody from “social interaction at some point” but doesn’t remember exactly where:

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but only if you aim for the head.”

The informant claims that he “normally wouldn’t” perform the proverb parody unless someone else brought the proverb up first.

He thinks that “the whole ‘apple a day keeps the doctor away’ thing is dumb to begin with.”

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” the non-parodied version of the proverb, is part of the parameiological minimum for speakers of the English language. The informant did not specify why he felt that the proverb was foolish, but it may be because there is no nutritional reason to believe that eating an apple every day would keep the eater healthy. This version, which implies that throwing the apple at the doctor would be a more effective way of keeping him away, scoffs at the idea that eating an apple each day would have any great effect. Joe Schwarcz, the author of An Apple a Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat, agrees: “It is certainly possible to have a good diet and never eat apples, just as it is possible to gorge on apples and have a horrible diet” (7). This proverb parody, like many others, serves as a vehicle for mocking traditional wisdom.

Source:

Schwarcz, Joe. An Apple a Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007.