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{{About|the form of [[humour]]}}
{{citations missing|date=August 2010}}
{{TOCright}}
<!-- This article is written in UK English, meaning humour is spelt with a u. Do not change this. -->
A '''joke''' is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being [[humour|humorous]]. To achieve this end, jokes may employ [[irony]], [[sarcasm]], [[word play]] and other devices. Jokes may have a [[Punch line|punchline]] that will end the sentence to make it humorous.

A [[practical joke]] or [[prank]] differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl).
==Purpose==
Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally [[laughter]]; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat".

However jokes have other purposes and functions, common to [[comedy]]/[[humour]]/[[satire]] in general.

==Antiquity of jokes==
Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a [[Flatulence humour|fart joke]] from ancient [[Sumer]] is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.<ref>[http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKUA14785120080731 'World's oldest joke' traced back to 1900 BC].</ref> Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis. <ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes-revealed-by-university-research.html</ref>

A recent discovery of a document called ''[[Philogelos]]'' (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different [[stereotype]]s, the [[absent-minded professor]], the [[eunuch]], and people with [[hernia]]s or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are:<blockquote>''A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me."''</blockquote>

There is even a version of [[Monty Python]]'s [[Dead Parrot]] sketch: ''a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him."'' Comic [[Jim Bowen]] has presented them to a modern audience. "''One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are [[Tommy Cooper]]-esque.''"<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3454319/Dead-Parrot-sketch-is-1600-years-old.html Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book] March 13, 2009</ref>

==Psychology of jokes==
Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being:
*[[Immanuel Kant]], in ''Critique of Judgement'' (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis:
<blockquote>"An Englishman at an Indian's table in [[Surat]] saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..."</blockquote>
*[[Henri Bergson]], in his book ''Le rire'' (''Laughter'', 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings.
*[[Sigmund Freud]]'s ''"[[Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious]]"''. (''Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten'').
*[[Arthur Koestler]], in ''[[The Act of Creation]]'' (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as [[literature]] and [[science]].
*[[Marvin Minsky]] in ''[[Society of Mind]] (1986)''.
:Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human [[brain]]. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn [[nonsense]]. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly.
*[[Edward de Bono]] in ''"[[The Mechanism of the Mind]]"'' (1969) and ''"I am Right, You are Wrong"'' (1990).
:Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. [[Punch line|When a familiar connection is disrupted]] and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs ''as the new connection is made''. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example:
:*Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter.
:*Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line [[Rule of three (writing)|the third time]] the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line.
:*Why jokes often rely on [[stereotype]]s: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up.
:*Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. [[Three wishes joke|the genie and a lamp]] and [[Bar joke|a man walks into a bar]]): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern.

*In 2002, [[Richard Wiseman]] conducted a study intended to discover the [[world's funniest joke]] [http://www.laughlab.co.uk].

[[Laughter]], the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the [[stomach]] [[muscle]]s, and releases [[endorphins]], natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain.

==Jokes in organizations==
Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, [[9-1-1]] operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.<ref>"Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. ''Communication Monographs, 73,''283-308."</ref> This use of humor and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.<ref>"Lynch, O. H. (2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. ''Communication Theory, 4,''423-445."</ref> In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humor use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.<ref>"Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humour. ''Journal of Management Studies, 39,''269-288."</ref>

==Rules==
The rules of humour are analogous to those of [[poetry]]. These common rules are mainly [[timing]], [[precision]], synthesis, and [[rhythm]]. French philosopher [[Henri Bergson]] has said in an essay: "''In every wit there is something of a poet.''"<ref name="BergsonWitPoetry">{{cite book|author=[[Henri Bergson]] |title=Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic| origyear=1901|publisher = Dover Publications|year=2005|url=http://www.authorama.com/laughter-9.html}}</ref> In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself.

===Precision===
To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, [[in focus|in-focus]] image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter.
To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision. An example by [[Woody Allen]] (from ''[[Side Effects]]'', "''A Giant Step for Mankind''" story [http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2006/06/recos-woody-allen-stories.html]):

{{cquote|Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose.}}

===Synthesis===
That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.{{Citation needed|date=November 2008}} An example from George Carlin:
{{cquote|I have as much authority as the [[Pope]], I just don't have as many people who believe it.<ref>{{cite book|title= George Carlin Reads to You: Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and More Napalm & Silly Putty|author=[[George Carlin]]|year=2010|publisher= Highbridge Company }}</ref>
}}
Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".{{Citation needed|date=November 2008}} Numerous examples from [[Monty Python]] exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, ''[[Family Guy]]'' often exploits such humor: for example in the episode "[[Wasted Talent]]", [[Peter Griffin]] bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it whilst inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.{{Vague|date=November 2008}} Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke [[The Aristocrats (joke)|The Aristocrats]] can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an [[anti-joke]], as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.{{Vague|date=November 2008}}

===Rhythm===
{{main|Timing (linguistics)|Comic timing}}
The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the [[laughter|laugh]], it just makes the [[salience]] of the joke and provokes a [[smile]]. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. [[Milton Berle]] demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same [[rhythm]], the audience laughs anyway{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}}. A classic is the [[ternary rhythm]], with three [[Meter (poetry)|beat]]s: [[introduction (essay)|Introduction]], [[premise (film)|premise]], [[antithesis]] (with the antithesis being the [[punch line]]).

In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline.

===Comic===
In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a [[comic gag]] or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child.

[[Laurel and Hardy]] are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In [[clown]]s stumbling is a childish [[tempo]]. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in ''[[Side Effects]]'' (''By Destiny Denied'' story) by Woody Allen:
{{cquote|"My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot".}}
The typical comic technique is the disproportion.

===Wit===
In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"<ref name="FreudJokeWit">{{cite book|author=[[Sigmund Freud]]|title=Wit and its relation to the unconscious|date=missingdate|publisher=missingpublisher|pages=180,371&ndash;374|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2/intro2.html}}</ref>(Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen:
{{cquote|I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.}}
Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was:
{{cquote|Well.}}
Wit is a branch of [[rhetoric]], and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called [[Trope (linguistics)|tropes]], a particular kind of [[figure of speech]]) that can be used to make jokes.<ref name="AttardoLinguistic">{{cite book|author=Salvatore Attardo|title=Linguistic Theories of Humour|pages=55|year=1994|publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]]|isbn=3-11-014255-4}}</ref>

[[Irony]] can be seen as belonging to this field.

===Humour===
In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).<ref name="FreudJokeWit" /><ref name="FreudJokeHumor">{{cite journal|year=1928|title=Humour|author=Sigmund Freud|journal=International Journal of Psychoanalysis}}</ref> In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a [[cynic]]". An example from Woody Allen:
{{cquote|Three times I've been mistaken for [[Robert Redford]]. Each time by a blind person.}}
This field of jokes is still a [[Grey area (concept)|grey area]], being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist [[Chris Morris (satirist)|Chris Morris]], like the sketches of the ''[[Jam (TV series)|Jam]]'' television program.

[[Black humour]] and [[sarcasm]] belong to this field.

==Cycles==
Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the [[folklore of the United States]], collect jokes into '''joke cycles'''. A '''cycle''' is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a [[literature cycle]].)<ref>{{cite book|title=Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis|author=Salvatore Attardo|year=2001|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|id=ISBN 311017068X|pages=69&ndash;71|chapter=Beyond the Joke}}</ref> Folklorists have identified several such cycles:
*the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about [[Helen Keller]]<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Journal of American Folklore|volume=93|pages=441&ndash;448|year=1980|author=K. Hirsch and M.E. Barrick|title=The Hellen Keller Joke Cycle|doi=10.2307/539874|url=http://jstor.org/stable/539874|issue=370|publisher=The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 93, No. 370}}</ref>
*[[Viola]] jokes<ref>{{cite journal|date=Winter 2000|author=Carl Rahkonen|title=No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore|journal=Western Folklore|volume=59|issue=1|pages=49&ndash;63|doi=10.2307/1500468|url=http://jstor.org/stable/1500468|publisher=Western Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 1}}</ref>
*the [[NASA]], Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster]]<ref>{{cite journal|title=The NASA Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher|author=Elizabeth Radin Simons|journal=Western Folklore|volume=45|issue=4|date=October 1986|pages=261&ndash;277|doi=10.2307/1499821|url=http://jstor.org/stable/1499821|publisher=Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster|author=Willie Smyth|journal=Western Folklore|volume=45|issue=4|date=October 1986|pages=243&ndash;260|doi=10.2307/1499820|url=http://jstor.org/stable/1499820|publisher=Western Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 4}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster|author=Elliott Oring|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=100|issue=397|date=July &ndash; September 1987|pages=276&ndash;286|doi=10.2307/540324|url=http://jstor.org/stable/540324|publisher=The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 397}}</ref>
*the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the [[Chernobyl disaster]]<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl|author=Laszlo Kurti|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=101|issue=401|date=July &ndash; September 1988|pages=324&ndash;334|doi=10.2307/540473|url=http://jstor.org/stable/540473|publisher=The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 401}}</ref>
*the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to [[Pope John Paul II]]<ref>{{cite journal|title=Polish Pope Jokes|author=[[Alan Dundes]]|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=92|issue=364|date=April &ndash; June 1979|pages=219&ndash;222|doi=10.2307/539390|url=http://jstor.org/stable/539390|publisher=The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 364}}</ref>
*the [[Essex girl]] and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the [[United Kingdom]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Jokes and Their Relation to Society|author=Christie Davies|year=1998|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=3110161044|pages=186&ndash;189}}</ref>
*the Dead Baby Joke Cycle<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Dead Baby Joke Cycle|author=Alan Dundes|journal=Western Folklore|volume=38|issue=3|date=July 1979|pages=145&ndash;157|doi=10.2307/1499238|url=http://jstor.org/stable/1499238|publisher=Western Folklore, Vol. 38, No. 3}}</ref>
*the [[Newfie]] Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about [[Newfoundland and Labrador|Newfoundland]]ers<ref>{{cite book|title=Mirth of Nations|author=Christie Davies|chapter=Jokes about Newfies and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders|year=2002|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=0765800969}}</ref>
*the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the [[Quadriplegic]] Joke Cycle<ref>{{cite book|pages=255|title=The Mourning for Diana|author=Christie Davies|editor=eJulian Anthony Walter and Tony Walter|year=1999|publisher=Berg Publishers|chapter=Jokes on the Death of Diana|isbn=1859732380}}</ref>
*the [[Jew]] Joke Cycle and the [[Polack]] Joke Cycle<ref>{{cite journal|author=Alan Dundes|title=A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States|journal=Journal of American Folklore|volume=84|year=1971|pages=186&ndash;203|doi=10.2307/538989|url=http://jstor.org/stable/538989|issue=332|publisher=The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 332}}</ref>
*the [[Rastus]] and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"<ref>{{cite book|title=Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore|editor=Alan Dundes|pages=612|chapter=Folk Humor|year=1991|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=0878054782}}</ref>
*the [[Jewish American Princess]] and [[Jewish mother stereotype|Jewish American Mother]] joke cycles<ref>{{cite journal|title=The J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American Jokelore|author=[[Alan Dundes]]|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=98|date=October &ndash; December 1985|pages=456&ndash;475|doi=10.2307/540367|issue=390|url=http://jstor.org/stable/540367|publisher=The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 390}}</ref>
*the Wind-Up Doll Joke Cycle<ref>{{cite journal|title=Wind-Up Dolls|author=Robin Hirsch|journal=Western Folklore|volume=23|issue=2|date=April 1964|pages=107&ndash;110|doi=10.2307/1498259|url=http://jstor.org/stable/1498259|publisher=Western Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 2}}</ref>

Gruner discusses several "[[sick joke]]" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding [[Gary Hart]], [[Natalie Wood]], [[Vic Morrow]], [[Jim Bakker]], [[Richard Pryor]], and [[Michael Jackson]], noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about [[Vic Morrow]] ("We now know that Vic Morrow had [[dandruff]]: they found his [[Head & Shoulders|head and shoulders]] in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Admiral Mountbatten]] after his murder by Irish Republican terrorists in 1979, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that [[Christa McAuliffe]] had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").<ref name=Gruner>{{cite book|title=The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh|author=Charles R. Gruner|year=1997|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=0765806592|pages=142&ndash;143}}</ref>

Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".<ref>{{cite book|title=An Anatomy of Humor|author=Dr Arthur Asa Berger|year=1993|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=0765804948|pages=161&ndash;162|chapter=Healing with Humor}}</ref>

==Types of jokes==
Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly [[taboo]] (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off [[stereotype]]s and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category.

===Subjects===
''Political jokes'' are usually a form of [[satire]]. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "[[you have two cows]]" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems.

[[Professional humour]] includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other.

[[Mathematical joke]]s are a form of [[in-joke]], generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.)

[[Ethnic joke]]s exploit [[ethnic stereotypes]]. They are often [[racist]] and frequently considered offensive.

For example, the British tell jokes starting "[[An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman]]..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples.

Racially offensive humour is often considered funny, but similar jokes based on other stereotypes (such as [[blonde joke]]s) are often considered even more funny.

Religious jokes fall into several categories:
*Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. ''nun jokes'', ''priest jokes'', or ''rabbi jokes'')
*Jokes on classical religious subjects: [[crucifixion]], [[Adam and Eve]], [[St. Peter]] at The Gates, etc.
*Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A [[rabbi]], a [[medicine man]], and a [[pastor]] went fishing..."
*Letters and addresses to God.

[[Self-deprecating]] or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is [[Jewish humour]]. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humour as a levelling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "[[Ole and Lena]]" joke.

Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when [[Abraham Lincoln]] was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?".

[[Dirty jokes]] are based on [[taboo]], often [[sex]]ual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by [[Gershon Legman]].

Other taboos are challenged by ''[[sick joke]]s'' and ''[[gallows humour]]''; to joke about [[disability]] is considered in this group.

Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: ''Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.''.

[[Anti-joke]]s are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself. {{Citation needed|date=June 2007}}
A question was: 'What is the difference between a dead bird ?. The answer came:
"His right leg is as different as his left one'. An [[elephant joke]] is a joke, almost always a [[riddle]] or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an [[elephant]].

Jokes involving [[non-sequitur]] humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from the [[Mighty Boosh]] TV series.

===Styles===
The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common [[riddle]], has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; [[pun]]s are often employed. Of this type are [[knock-knock joke]], [[light bulb joke]], the many variations on "[[why did the chicken cross the road?]]", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a [[spoonerism]] linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts.

Some jokes require a [[double act]], where one respondent (usually the [[wiktionary:Straight man|straight man]]) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling.

A [[shaggy dog story]] is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc.); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy."

Some shaggy dog stories are actually cleverly constructed stories, frequently interesting in themselves, that culminate in one or more puns whose first meaning is reasonable as part of the story but whose second meaning is a common [[aphorism]], commercial jingle, or other recognisable word or phrase. As with other puns, there may be multiple separate rhyming meanings. Such stories treat the listener or reader with respect. (See: "Upon My Word!", a book by [[Frank Muir]] and [[Denis Norden]], spun off from their long-running BBC radio show [[My Word!]].)

==See also==
*[[Anecdote]]
*[[Comedy]]
*[[Comedy genres]]
*[[Computational humor]]
*[[East Frisian jokes]]
*[[Feghoot]]
*[[Funny]]
*[[Humor]]
*[[Internet humour]]
*[[Irish jokes]]
*[[Joke chess problem]]
*[[Mathematical joke]]
*[[Paradox]]
*[[Polish joke]]
*[[Pun]]
*[[Punch line]]
*[[Roman jokes]]
*[[Russian jokes]]
*[[The Funniest Joke in the World]]
*[[World's funniest joke]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*[[Mary Douglas]] “Jokes.” in ''Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies.'' [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and [[Michael Schudson]]. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.

==Further reading==
*{{cite book | last = Cante | first = Richard C. | title = Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture | publisher = Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0 7546 7230 1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form | year = March 2008 | location = London}}
*{{cite book | last = Holt | first = Jim | title = Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes | publisher = W. W. Norton | date = July 2008 | location = New York | isbn = 0393066738 }}

==External links==
{{wiktionary}}
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*[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-58 ''Dictionary of the History of ideas'':] Sense of the Comic
*{{dmoz|Recreation/Humor/Jokes/|''Jokes''}} &ndash; An active listing of links to jokes.

[[Category:Humor]]
[[Category:Jokes|*]]

{{Link GA|no}}
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[[bat-smg:Joukā]]
[[zh:笑話]]

Revision as of 16:35, 22 November 2010

joke on wiki.hahahahahahhahahahahhah

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