Tag Archives: Joke

(Najkraci vic na svijetu) the shortest joke in the world

Nationality: Croatian, American
Age: 49
Occupation: water pol referee
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/19/2017
Primary Language: Croatian
Language: English

TK is my dad and he likes jokes. It was a part of his culture growing up and he always likes to have a nice laugh.

 

Every summer we my family and I would go to Iž for our vacation. Iž is an island in Croatia. Usually to pass time in the car on our way there we play games, tell jokes and on one of those rides he told us this one.

 

TK: do you want to hear the shortest joke in the world?

 

Me: Yes

 

TK: do you want to hear another one?

 

He heard this joke from his friend back when he was in high school. The genre of jokes he enjoys is simple, short and stupid just like this one above. For those exact reasons these kind oh jokes are funny. A joke like this one is meant to bring giggles and not full on laughter. They are usually used to pass time, in between classes, on road trips and etc.

Two men filing a missing report

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles,CA
Performance Date: 3/17/2017
Primary Language: English

Informant: TF was born and raised in Villa Park, California. His father works in commercial real estate and his mother working as a manager for Choc Hospital. He has one older brother, a twin sister, and one younger brother. TF is half Lebanese and strongly connected to his Lebanese background. He is a first year student at USC. TF heard this joke from his friend back in high school. TF told me this joke last semester while studying for one of our finals.

 

“A husband came to the police station to report that his wife is missing. There was one man already there filing the papers for his missing wife Katarina. The police officer asked what Katarina looks like; the husband says: “long legs, blonde, big breasts…”

The police officer turns back to the other husband and asks: “and your wife sir.”

“Forget my wife, lets find Katarina.”’

 

The joke makes fun of men; as soon as they see an attractive woman they go running after her. Not thinking with their heads, but instead with their penises. The joke is exaggerating that men are only interested in the superficial. This is why it is funny, because if we generalize men, it is true to an extant.

Vermont Accents

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 01/15/17
Primary Language: English

This is a description of the Vermont/Milton accent that is used in Northern Vermont. The informant is from Burlington, which is one of the larger cities in Vermont and the most metropolitan.

“Um so, people in vermont, its actually a very interesting socio-economic uh little raft, because it’s a lot of very old farming families that have been there forever, so a lot of french-candadian and irish old old old families, that like, live there, and then in 60s and 70s a lot of communes popped up, and so theres was like a lot of college educated upper middle class wealthy people who moved to vermont, and so theres kind of a lot of class divisions and dynamics working out there. Um, and it kind of, there’s a division between people who have the accent and those that don’t, and the further isolated you get, the thicker the accent is, and the most isolated is in the islands of vermont, um, and that’s Milton, but if you live there is “Mil’un”, because you don’t say the T and you really hit the vowels, um, so we make, they are the butt of everyone’s jokes, the people up in the boonies,  up in the fucking islands, who like cannot speak a word of english and you can’t understand it, um, they’re seen as the dumbest hillbillies and just the like biggest idiots in all of vermont and there’s a lot of big idiots in vermont, um, and they, people do their accents, so I don’t have an accent because my parents are from upstate new york and i have a very upstate new york accent but the vermont accent is a lot of dropped T’s, Vermon’”

 

Analysis: When speaking about Vermont, it was clear that informant knew a lot about how the differences in class affect how vernacular speech is disseminated between communities. She was aware that living where she did and having the parents that she did created a difference between her and the other Vermonters who had been there for generations. She was also able to perform the accent although she doesn’t speak with it.

Ironic Doctor Joke

Nationality: Iranian-American
Age: 77
Occupation: Small Business Owner
Residence: La Canada, CA, USA
Performance Date: March 12, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian/Farsi

Would you mind sharing a joke from your childhood with me?

“This is a joke that my dad, uhh, told me. Uhh… [tells the joke in Farsi, but the phonetics are muddled in the recording.]

The English translation is that my dad told me that ‘Whenever you get sick, be sure to go to the doctor. Uhh… Because, you know, the doctor has to make a living, he has to live. So when you go to the doctor, make sure you get a prescription, and take it to the pharmacist, and get your, you know, get your medication, because the pharmacist has to make a living too, he has to live also. And when you get your prescription, make sure you don’t take it yourself, because you want to live, too!'”

And what was the context that that would be delivered in, like, why was that a joke, why was that funny?

“Uhh, generally, everybody’s out there to make a living, you know, but you want to make sure it’s not at your expense. So you’re not a, uhh, sacrificial lamb for everyone else to make a living.”

Analysis: Keeping with the trend of cautionary proverbs and stories, this ironic joke from MB explains through humor that not everyone, even often-trusted authorities, ought to be trusted outright. With Masood’s background growing up poor in Iran, this may make some sense, but it is interesting to note how often distrust or wariness comes up in the lessons that he and Tahereh were taught when they were growing up.

Hands Mean Cancer?

Nationality: Chinese and Korean
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4/11/16
Primary Language: English

The Main Piece
“If your hand is bigger than your face then it means you have cancer.” After hearing that one usually puts their hand in front of their face and the performer slaps the performee with their own hand.
Background Information
My informant is my roommate, Sarah Kwan. She is an undergraduate at USC and considers herself a hilarious person making people laugh at the jokes she tells. She enjoys telling this joke because she feels it is a “old-school classic.” She can recall when her own friend pulled the joke on her when she was in high school and has used it to prank others ever since. It was a good way for her to make groups of people laugh, although it did not work all the time. Because of its “classic”-ness many people had heard of it and did not find it amusing, however she continues to use it despite naysayers’ attitudes.
Context
This joke was performed in front of me and a couple other of my roommates. Unfortunately, many of my roommates did not particularly enjoy the joke, but it was an ice breaker as we half heartedly laughed at the joke. This may have occurred because of the fact that we were only a couple of weeks into the school year and did not know each other too well.
Personal Thoughts
I felt her attempt to break the ice with this joke had good intentions even if it did not work out the way she expected it to. It also revealed to me the usefulness of a joke and how these joke would get passed down from person to person, not necessarily being told by one another as stories are, but in the way that pranks are pulled on each other, thus creating a chain reaction of jokes or pranks.