Tag Archives: jokes

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.

Brown and Sticky Anti-Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Performance Date: 2/16/23
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Text

The informant was very nonchalant about telling this joke. It was the kind of “let’s get this over with” demeanor that someone has when they expect you to already know the joke they’re about it tell. Regardless of that mutual understanding, they had a grin on their face that made it evident it was a joke they liked to tell.

“Okay. What’s brown and sticky?”

I responded, “Ohh, yeah. I’ve heard this one before.”

“Sticks,” we said together. And despite both knowing the punchline to the joke, we both shared a brief laugh as it was still an effective joke.

Context

RELATIONSHIP –
The informant considers to be their “first joke ever,” and it was the first subversive joke that they had ever heard. Because of this, it’s the first joke that comes to mind when they think about telling a joke. Even then, they don’t consider it to be a “funny joke.”

WHERE THEY HEARD IT –
The informant attributed this joke to playground humor around when they were in the “second grade.”

USE OR INTERPRETATION –
Typically used as their go-to joke to tell, the informant tells this joke as something easy and clever– if the audience hasn’t heard it before. They described the joke being especially effective for kids, but much less effective for adults who can automatically infer the correct response.

Analysis

This joke is both simple and subversive. It baits the audience into expecting the question of “What’s brown and sticky” to result in something more akin to a riddle where the answer would simply be an object that is both visually brown and texturally sticky. Part of what makes this subversion particularly effective for children is the inherent potty/gross-out humor that arises from asking someone for something brown and sticky. When the punchline (and more joke-y aspect) is revealed to be “sticks,” it additionally serves as a moment to embarrass the audience for their “gross” thoughts.

Snipe Hunting

Informant Information — KL

  • Nationality: American
  • Age: 19
  • Occupation: Student
  • Residence: Los Angeles, California
  • Date of Performance/Collection: April 10, 2022
  • Primary Language: English

The informant shared this story with me in an in-person interview. She participated in a “snipe hunt” during a visit to her grandparents’ house when she was about ten years old.

Interviewer: 

How did you come to participate in the “snipe hunt”?

Informant: 

When I was probably ten years old, my parents sent my brothers and I to spend a few weeks with my grandparents in Arizona. We were super excited to see the desert because my mom told us that there would be lots of cool animals there. 

About halfway through the trip, my grandparents were probably starting to get kind of tired of us, so they told us that we were going to spend a day snipe hunting. They drove us about 20 minutes away from their house and let us run around for like three hours… they didn’t even tell us that the snipes weren’t real! We found out after we got home and told our parents that we couldn’t find any. 

Interviewer: 

Had you heard of snipes before? What did your grandparents tell you to look for?

Informant: 

We hadn’t ever heard of snipes before, I thought they were native to the desert. My grandparents said we were looking for little brown birds that couldn’t fly and had really long beaks. They said that we would have to creep up on them and jump on top of them to catch them. 

Interviewer: 

How did you and your brothers react to learning that they weren’t real?

Informant: 

My brothers didn’t really care. I think they would’ve been happy to catch any animal at all. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted to catch a snipe and hold it, since they were supposed to be soft like birds. Now I think it’s really funny. 

Analysis:

The snipe hunt was a joke played on my informant by her grandparents, but it could also be considered a rite of passage (transitioning from being in the group that doesn’t know what snipes are to being in the group that’s in on the joke). I hadn’t heard of snipe hunting, but I have been sent on similar fool’s errands. As a child, my father once let me run around Home Depot looking for a “left-handed screwdriver” while he was shopping.

Polish Joke

Context: Informant is of Polish heritage, and although they are very proud of their Polish background, they do not necessarily engage in the culture of Poland within their daily life.

Informant: “We used to tell a lot of Polish jokes.  How do you get a one armed Pole out of a tree? You wave to him. I heard this from my grandparents. I have more Polish jokes. Did you hear about the Pole while in a frantic called the police? He said for the police to hurry.  He locked his keys in the car. The police said that it wasn’t an emergency. The Pole said that wasn’t the worst part. His family was locked in the car with them.”

Background Information: Back when the informant was a child, it was common for people to tell ‘Polish Jokes’. Although the Polish slander has decreased dramatically since then, the informant still remembers when these jokes were common. They’ve stated that when they were a child, they were uncomfortable telling people they were Polish. Now, however, they have learned to embrace their Polish heritage, and they tell these jokes with an air of pride. The jokes represent a hardship the Poles have faced, yet by telling the joke themselves, they reclaim the joke for themselves while simultaneously not forgetting the struggle they endured.

Thoughts: Although I have some Polish heritage, I was still uncomfortable listening to these jokes. On one hand, I was uncomfortable having a personal identity attacked, but on the other hand, it was uncomfortable seeing this Polish person slander their own name. I think this encapsulates a lot of the general history of the jokes. They were meant to belittle the Poles, but now the Polish people are fighting against this ridicule and in turn making everyone else uncomfortable instead. It’s an interesting dynamic. I think it is empowering to see these jokes be reclaimed, and the jokes themselves have become representations of power.

STEM Majors be like I’m taking a break from mental health for school.

Text: STEM Majors be like I’m taking a break from mental health for school.

Context:

Context of performance: Discord call between myself, informant, and a mutual friend. Mutual friend and I are both STEM majors, and were complaining about how stressed we are. Informant is an art major and cracked the joke during the call.

Informant: It’s like…it’s like a play on, the mental health campaigns right now, y’know? Like people taking a break from like, school and work and stuff for mental health? Like I’m always reading that, that like, people are um taking gap years from school, for like mental health. Y’know that like catchphrase to take a break from school for mental health?

Informant: and just like, none of y’all [our mutual friends who are also all STEM majors] are, like, popping off mentally [translation: doing well mentally].

Personal Thoughts:

This joke was particularly funny in this circumstance for a variety of reasons. First, the person telling the joke was an “outsider looking in” – the informant is an art major mocking the suffering of STEM majors. Second, all three of us in this conversation have the background context to make this joke funny (we are all part of a folk group). This context includes a deep understanding of the rigorous course-load of a STEM major, in addition to knowledge about “our generation” pushing to prioritize mental health over academics.

What makes this joke funny, then, is the irony that STEM students instead prioritize their academic education over their mental health. I would bet that other members of this particular group – STEM students – would also find this joke funny (if not also a bit painful).