A – Z
I’m proud to be a part of a wonderful organization called the Writers of Kern. They are having a “Blog Challenge” and I’m participating. I’m writing my normal two blogs per week but challenging myself to be prompted by the alphabet. Hope you can read all twenty six from A-Z. For more good reading check out the Writers of Kern’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/95572300558/
J is for JOKE
Jokes are a form of humor, but not all humor is jokes. The actual meaning of the word joke is words used in a narrative that builds, usually in the form of a story, to a punchline that hopefully gets a laugh at the end.
Maybe I should give a demonstration:
A man had been slipping in and out of coma for several months, but his wife stayed by his side every single day. One day he finally opened his eyes and said to his wife:
“You’ve been always with me through the bad times. When my business failed, you supported me. When I got fired, you were there. Also when I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost our house and my health started failing, you were still by my side. So you know what it means?”
“What, my darling” his wife asked, smiling bravely.
“I think you’re really bad luck,” the man said.
As Jeb Bush might say, “Could you please laugh now?”
Jokes can also be in the form of a riddle.
Remember the “knock-knock jokes?
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Dwayne!
Dwayne who?
Dwayne the bathtub, I’m dwowning.
I know, I didn’t laugh either. Knock-knock jokes are only funny til about ten years old.
The question and answer riddles are funny sometimes:
Q: What did the Tin Man say when he got run over by a steamroller?
A: “Curses! Foil again!”
Q: A man rode in to town on Tuesday, and left two days later on Tuesday. How so?
A: His horse is named Tuesday!
She found that much funnier than I did.
Then there are practical jokes. They usually cause the victim embarrassment, confusion or discomfort. We like to watch them happening to people we don’t know, usually on YouTube. Back home in Indiana we only did our practical jokes in October. It was called Halloweening.
Another common form of joke is the “Joke Cycle.” They are about a consistent theme with different punch lines. They are constantly recycled with new names. There are endless lists. Here are a few:
Helen Keller jokes, Irish jokes, lightbulb jokes, priest and/or nun jokes, redneck jokes, Polish jokes, blonde jokes, little Johnny jokes, deserted island jokes, and of course endless streams of bar jokes.
Why do people find something funny? Why do people laugh?
Sigmund Freud began studying laughter and in 1905 published a study entitled, “Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious.” He was the first to try to explain humor and why we all have different tastes in our response to attempts to make us laugh. “Psychology Today” has published over 200 articles discussing various aspects of humor.
We know laughter is good for us. In 1872 Charles Darwin published the first description of the physiology of laugher in terms of the “respiration, vocalization, facial action, gestures and postures” of laughter. Laughter creates physical movement.
I don’t know why I have a different reaction to humor than others. I do know I have said things I thought would be funny and they were not. I still do that, but usually I’m talking to the cat so it doesn’t matter. He always laughs at my jokes. Especially if they’re cat jokes. He loves cat jokes. Told him two this morning and he cracked up.
Today I told my cat, “Hey you’re getting your favorite breakfast, Mice Krispies.
It’s going to be warm this afternoon, so I’ll make sure you get a Mice Cream Cone.”
He smiled and asked for another so I gave him one more.
“What do you call a cat that has swallowed a duck?
“A duck filled fatty puss.”
My cat loves my jokes.
