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This week: The Punch Line Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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"I had thought - I had been told - that a 'funny' thing is a thing of a goodness. It isn't. Not ever is it funny to the person it happens to. Like that sheriff without his pants. The goodness is in the laughing itself. I grok it is a bravery... and a sharing... against pain and sorrow and defeat."
- Valentine Michael Smith
(Robert Heinlein,
Stranger in a Strange Land) |
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The Death of the Joke
No, not that guy. The joke. Without an r.
The internet killed the joke.
That may, on the surface, seem like a falsehood. After all, here we are connected to a world full of jokes. How can the joke be dead?
Well... when's the last time you memorized a joke and told it to your friends?
I don't know. Maybe you still do. But I used to do that all the time. Whenever I was out with friends, inevitably, whether drinking was involved or not (and even before I started drinking (legally)), someone would tell a joke. Sometimes me, sometimes someone else. We'd all laugh, usually, and then someone else would tell a joke. And we'd laugh. And then someone else would tell a joke. This would escalate until, usually, we were all laughed out and we'd go find something else to do that was less painful, like lawn darts or full-contact martial arts.
A few weeks ago, over Labor Day weekend, I had the privilege of meeting people I hadn't met before, and, whilst drinking, it occurred to me that these people had not heard me tell my favorite joke. All my friends around here have heard it at least once half a dozen times a zillion times, so I had a new audience! With my friends here, all someone has to do is mention the punch line, which is great except when there's someone new around, who immediately feels left out of the clique - because then you can't actually tell the joke, because you've already given away the punch line.
So I told the joke - Scottish accent and all. I was rusty on the Scottish accent, but I remembered the joke, pretty much word for word. Of course, each time I tell it, it changes slightly, because my memory is not perfect - but there's an art to telling a joke, and it involves, among other things, being absolutely certain to include every piece of information necessary to be sure the punch line makes sense. You can muff up a few details here, embellish there, but you always have to keep the eventual punch line in mind - but not so much in mind that you give it away beforehand.
Drinking helps, up to a point. Then it hurts.
When I was done, I realized I couldn't remember how long it had been since I actually told - or heard - a joke. Oh, there's plenty of funny stuff on the internet; when I find it, I pass it around to people I know would appreciate it, and vice versa. And I've done a couple of these newsletters where I wrote down a joke I'd heard and told aloud. But I almost never tell jokes anymore.
Long ago, before the advent of the written world, all history was by oral tradition. Stories would be passed down from mother to daughter, father to sun, in an unbroken chain. They were supposed to be memorized, but I'm sure embellishments and elisions crept in here and there, until finally, writing was invented and someone said, "Hey, let's write down these stories so we'll always remember them." And then we promptly forgot where we put them, and we'd lost the art of memorization and storytelling. And so we got some of what we call "myths."
A similar thing happened with the printing press, which began the process of slowing down the transformation of language itself by making the printed word relatively cheap and common - and further negating the need to memorize stuff and tell it via oral tradition. One of the few traditions that survived the printing press was the joke, which can be written down, but often was passed from person to person not by trading books but by sitting around and laughing.
The internet, I think, has continued the erosion of the oral tradition by killing the joke. I've even found myself laughing my ass off at something, sending it to my friends or posting it here in my blog, and then - not ten minutes later - finding myself utterly unable to remember what the hell I'd just been laughing at.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, mind you. I find I keep friends longer, these days, for some reason. Still, it's sad when things like joke-telling, horse-drawn carriages, biplanes, steam engines and the art of flint knapping become lost to the relentless march of technology
Some of you are still around who heard me tell the joke in question at the last Writing.Com convention in 2006. But I'm not going to tell that joke here. Sorry. It lacks something if it's written down, and besides, this newsletter is supposed to conform to the [13+] content rating. You'll just have to be lucky enough to meet me someday.
So I'll tell a clean joke instead, so at least you won't feel left out if you haven't met me. This is one I first heard back in the 90s. I'm going to tell it the verbal way - present tense - rather than the preferred form for written jokes, which is, for some reason, past tense:
This scientist discovers a way to vastly extend the lifespan of marine mammals, using an arcane formula that involves, as a key ingredient, extract of mynah birds. He's testing this formula on his pet dolphin when, at a critical stage in his experiments, he runs out of extract. So he goes off to the pet store to pick up a few mynahs. While he's gone, though, the local zoo has a problem, and a lot of the big cats escape. The biggest cat of all finds his way to the scientist's front door, curls up and immediately goes to sleep.
So the scientist comes back, swinging his bag full of mynah birds, whistling a merry tune, when he turns the corner and comes upon the King of the Beasts, crashed out right there on his front doorstep. He stops and thinks: "Whoa. I gotta get past this guy - I'm at a critical stage in my experiments! All the windows are locked, and there's no other door. What am I going to do?" He thinks about it and decides the only way is dangerous but workable: he sneaks up on the cat, tiptoeing as quietly as he can, figuring he can just kind of step over the resting beast without making a noise that would wake him up.
He's got one foot over the sleeping form when a dozen cops come out of nowhere, point their guns at him and yell, "Freeze, mister!
"You're under arrest...
"...for transporting mynahs across sedate lions for immortal porpoises!"
(I never promised it would be a GOOD joke.) |
A few jokes from around the site. Some may even be funny:
From the mailbag:
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  writes: "I always enjoy laughing at these stories.
This is one story that will provoke two reactions, muffled laughter from women, and sympathetic "Owie"'s from men. After all, this guy has trouble with three scary women, who happen to be friends with his wife."
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Last time, in "Comedy Newsletter (August 25, 2010)" , I talked about verbing nouns.
Free_Rip  :
If the use of 'brownie points' wasn't kind of irrelevant online (where you can't bake cakes  ) you would have got a hundred of them for using Calvin and Hobbes! Best comic strip ever, in my opinion 
On a more serious note (*clears throat and puts on poker face*) it's an interesting point you bring up. When we talk about language changing, we tend to think about computer/tech terms vs. shakespearean terms, not the little everyday changes. I know that the sentence 'I'm just going to go put my bed on' would have made no sense, and probably a little creepy/concerning a few years back. Now, I just inwardly grump over the fact that I don't own an electric blanket! 
I always figured "brownie points" referred to larval Girl Scouts, not the confection. Yes, C&H was the greatest comic strip ever, though Gary Larson's "The Far Side" and Walt Kelly's "Pogo" rank a close second and third, in my opinion. Oh, and I personally think Gift Points can substitute for Brownie Points online (hint, hint!)
THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  :
Nice one!
Thanks!
LJPC - the tortoise :
Hi Robert! Great newsletter, as always. I verb new words all the time and make up sound-effect words, too. It never fails that some (unimaginative) reviewers call me out on them. But I keep doing it! -- Laura
Making up sound-effect words is a lot of fun. But I maintain that Don Martin, of Mad Magazine fame, was the all-time champion at that!
Special Announcement: If you're planning on participating in NaNoWriMo this year, I can't possibly recommend this Challenge enough. Whether you're writing the ultimate comic novel, or trying your hand at some other genre, I hope you'll check this out:
And that's it for now - I know I promised last time to start gearing up for Halloween, but as I write this, it's not even the Fall Equinox yet, so... next time! Until then, stay away from falling leaves and
LAUGH ON!!!
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Comedy: September 22, 2010 Issue [#3978]
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