I grew up with "little moron" jokes. Usually they started out with "Why did the little moron..." For example,
Why did the little moron take a knife and slice of bread to the street corner?
Because he heard there was a traffic jam. Why did the little moron take a ladder to school? Because it was a high school. (That's the heretic's version, the Catholic version is: Why did the little moron take a ladder to church? Because it was a High Mass.) Why did the little moron throw the butter out the widow? Because he wanted to see a butterfly. I know hundreds of them, maybe thousands.The last Polish joke I heard (several years ago): "The Polish Academy of Science just announced the first successful appendix transplant."
The best Republican joke I've heard: A man is driving down the street, sees a yard sign reading: "Republican puppies for free." He reads that sign everyday for two weeks, then the sign is changed: "Democrat puppies for free." The man couldn't stand it. He went up to the house, knocked on the door and asked why they had changed the sign from Republican to Democrat puppies. "Why? Because they opened their eyes."
Of course Republicans, having loose ethical standards, could adapt that joke to their nefarious ends.
My favorite joke of all is about a city slicker driving down a country road and sees a farmer close-by the road holding up a pig that's eating apples right off the branches of a tree. The city slicker couldn't stand it. He pulled off the road, approached the farmer and said,
"Howdy, neighbor, mind if I ask what you're doing?""I'm feeding the pig," the farmer said, thinking this guy must be a bit slow. "I see, yes, of course, but tell me, doesn't it take a long time doing it that way?"
"Sure," the farmer said, "but what's time to a pig?"Strangely, for a Memphis boy, I don't remember very many racial jokes, nor can I remember any anti-Semitic jokes. We probably didn't think the threat posed by blacks and Jews was any laughing matter. Or maybe I've just blotted them out of my mind. I remember several anti-Semitic expressions like to haggle is "to jew someone down", or if something is unfair it's "not very Christian" (ergo Jewish) and I clearly remember the taunt: "Jew baby, Jew baby, sitting on a fence, trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents." Of course, growing up in Memphis I didn't know any Jews. But I suspected they were suspect just from the expressions. When I was growing up the word "nigger" was as common as cotton. Most educated people said "Colored" in public. Then it became "Negro", then it became "black" then it became "Afro-American", then when afros died out, it became African American. I usually use "black" now, even when talking to Colored Negro Afro-Americans [you thought I was going to write "nigger", didn't you? -- ha! Humor is in the unexpected.]
Ever hear kids at about 5 to 7 years old try to make up a joke? The punch line usually has no relation whatsoever to the set up. Not all "unexpected" is funny. I surmise that kids see adults laugh at jokes employing irony or work play that they don't understand and they assume that not making sense is funny. Humor is not alien to them. I've seen kids less than a year laugh at physical humor, but verbal play is a horse of a difficult color. Little moron jokes must start taking hold at about 9 or 10 years old. I need to keep records of my grandkids' humor development. Publish a study. Yeah, I'll get right on that.
Mike Geary Memphis----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wager" <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 7:53 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The bad old days of humour...
My Dad told this exact same joke many times, but it was always about the "little morons." I don't know why the diminutive adjective, but it was always there. He told a similar joke about "little morons" building a house, with one on top of a ladder throwing away many nails over his shoulder. "Why are you throwing away those perfectly good nails?" the other little moron says. "Because the head's on the wrong side of the nail" replies the first little moron. "You moron; those nails are for the other side of the house" the second moron replies.I think this was an attempt to defuse the whole cultural slur connection with humor, but of course now the term "moron" itself would be suspect.So who ARE these strange people who go fishing and build houses in our jokes? What term SHOULD we use?Ursula Stange wrote:This is a tale about two less-than-brilliant countrymen who hired a boat and went fishing. The men caught some fine fish. When they were going home, one said to the other, "How are we going to make our way back to that wonderful fishing place again?" The second said, "I thought of that -- I marked the boat with chalk!" "You fool!" said the first. "That's no good. Supposing next time they give us a different boat?"This was a Polish joke when I was a child on the south side of Chicago. Then it was a Newfie joke here in Canada.Here I've found it on a Sufi story page (interestingly, without a slur on some minority or neighboring country or provincial outpost). My mother is from Northern Germany and she remembers this kind of joke about the Frieslanders. Ah...the days when you could tell a good Polish joke. And only sticks and stones could break their bones...------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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