A horse walks into a bar. The barman says, "Why the long face?"

A giraffe walks in to a bar and says, "The highballs- they're on me!"

A skeleton walks into a bar. He says to the bartender, "Gimme a beer and a mop."

Yee ha! Backlink to Open Thread 136.

The Self-Referential Joke:

Man walks into bar. Tells the bartender the self-referential joke. Bartender says, "That's something of a non-sequitur, don't you think?" Man says, "Yeah, and these prices you won't get many more either."

(College: too many drugs, too strong an interest in "Gödel, Escher, Bach".)

How many theoretical physicists does it take to change light bulb?

Five. One to hold the bulb, four to rotate the reference frame.

...AT these prices... crap.

A string walks into a bar. The bartender says "Get out, we don't serve strings here." The string leaves, ducks into an alley, ties himself into a half hitch and ruffles up one end. Then he goes back into the bar. The bartender says "Hey, are you that string that was just in here?" The string says "Nope, I'm afrayed knot."

Three men walk into a bar. The fourth one ducks.

Two bacteria walk into a bar.

"We don't serve your type in here", says the barman.

"It's OK", say the bacteria, "We work here, we're staph".

Duck walks into a bar. "Do you have any corn?"

"No," says the bartender, confused. "We don't have any corn."

The duck leaves.

Next day, the duck walks back into the bar. "Have any corn?"

The bartender is a little irritated now. "This is a bar, not a feed store. We don't have any corn!"

The duck leaves.

Next day, the duck walks in again. "Have any corn?"

The bartender is really p'd off now. "I told you before! We don't have any corn! If you come in and ask one more time, I'm going to nail your feet to the floor."

The duck leaves.

The next day, the duck walks in again. "Have any nails?"

"Uh, no."

"Have any corn?"

In honor of the day, the world's shortest joke: Two Irishmen walk out of a bar.

How many zen masters does it take to change a lightbulb?

The artichokes are blooming.

--

What's the difference between a duck?

One of its legs is both the same.

A priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut. The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.

He says, 'Sir, have you been drinking?'

'Just water,' says the priest.

The trooper says, 'Then why do I smell wine?'

The priest looks at the bottle and says, 'Good Lord! He's done it again!'

(Stolen from my blog):
Have you heard about the Irish boomerang?
It doesn't come back, it just sings songs about how much it wants to.

He was daft!

Three folks walk into a bar. The first one says "I'm sorry, I have just eaten the plums that were in the icebox." The second one says "It is a truth universally acknowledged that they were delicious, so sweet and so cold." The third one says "Sudo, make me a sandwich, and where can I shave the barber in the morning?"

The bartender says "Burma Shave."

A nun, a horse and a Frenchman walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "Is this some kind of joke?"

What's brown and sticky?
.
.
.
.
.
A stick

Davy Crockett walked into a bar. He kilt it!

:: golf clap ::

That's a keeper.

--

Mr. Johnson is the science teacher at a posh, all-girls Catholic school. One day, he notices two girls talking in the back of class, and calls on one of them: "Mary Margaret? Please name the organ in the human body that, under the correct conditions, can expand to ten times its size, and name those conditions."

Mary stammers for a moment, then replies "Mister Johnson, that's an inappropriate question, and I'll have you know my parents will find out about this!"

Mr. Johnson sighs "Very well. Susan, can you answer the question?"

Susan, a bright girl who had been paying attention, replies "Yes. The human iris, under conditions of dim light."

"Thank you. Mary, I have three things to say to you. First, you did not read the lesson plan. Second, you have a dirty mind. And third, some day you will be faced with a dreadful disappointment."

A dyslexic drunk walks into a bra....

From a Prairie Home Companion joke show: Did ya hear about the man who was addicted to line dancing? He entered a two-step program. (rimshot)

A giraffe, a skeleton, a duck, a bacterium, and the Pope walk into a bar.

The bartender looks at them and says "so, the gorilla had to work tonight?"

A termite walks into a bar.

"Where's the bar tender?"

So Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams and Mike Ford walk into a bar....

The speed of light in vacuo, Avogadro's constant and the reduced Planck constant walk into a pub. The landlord says "I'll serve you, speed of light in vacuo, and you, Avogadro's constant, but not you, the reduced Planck constant". "Why not?", asks the reduced Planck constant. The landlord says: "Because you're barred".

Three fonts walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "We don't serve your type in here."

According to my Dutch sources*, this is a German bar joke:

A man walks into a bar, which is very sad, because alcohol destroys many families.

----
* yes, a leetle animosity here

A grasshopper hops into a bar, says "Gimme a beer." The bartender serves him and says, "Y'know, we have a drink named after you!" Grasshopper goes, "Really? You have a drink named Larry?"

A set of jumper cables walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "We don't want your kind in here." And the jumper cables say, "What's the problem?" And the bartender says, "You look like you want to start something."

y

A mushroom walks into a bar. He asks the lady next to him, "Hey, can I buy you a drink?" The lady says, "Sure! You look like a fungi."

A neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer. It arrives, and the neutron goes, "Great! How much?" The bartender goes, "For you--no charge."

Nightsky @ #28, you owe me a keyboard.

An ethnographer walks into a bar and asks "How do you order a drink around here?"

Three men walk into a bar. The fourth is {Nicholas Sarkozy, Tom Cruise, Fiorello La Guardia}.

(adjust as suitable)

An ion walks into a bar, crying his eyes out. And the bartender says, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"It's my little electron," the ion says. "She's left me!"

"Are you sure?" asks the bartender.

"I'm positive!"

René Descartes was in a bar. At last call, the bartender asks him if he'd like another. Descartes says, "I think not." And he disappears.

Why did the antagonist cross the road?
Dramatic necessity!

Why did the protagonist cross the road?
Deus ex machina!

A fish rides a bicycle into a bar. The barman says, "Now, you didn't need to do that."

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says 'You can't be serious', and pours two beers.

A man walks into a revolving bar on top of a hotel, and strikes up a conversation with one of the regulars, who says: "You know, these revolving buildings create air vortices with interesting properties. If you time it right, you can jump out the window and get blown right back in."

The newcomer says "No way." But sure enough, the regular goes over the window, concentrates for a minute, then jumps out. A few seconds later he comes right back through the window and lands on his feet.

The newcomer says, "Wow! That's awesome! I want to try that. But how do I know when to jump?" The regular says, "Don't worry, I'll count it off for you." So the newcomer goes to the window, the regular concentrates for a bit then counts "3, 2, 1, GO!," and the newcomer jumps out of the window and falls thirty stories to his death.

The regular goes back to the bar. The bartender leans over to him and says, "You know, Superman, you're kind of an asshole when you're drunk."

Three men walked calm into a bar
(hey down, hoe down, walk this way now)
by the light of yonder sacred star
(with a down, Derry, Derry, down, down).

The first man to the barman spake
(hey down, hoe down, walk this way now)
to ask if everything was jake
(with a down, Derry, Derry, down, down).

The second to the first did say
(hey down, hoe down, walk this way now)
some things are best done for good pay
(with a down, Derry, Derry, down, down).

The third said naught, but he did spit
(hey down hoe down, walk this way now)
and barman thought it time to quit
(with a down, Derry, Derry, down, down)

Now, Ghu send every honest bloke
(hey down, hoe down walk this way now)
the point of this protracted joke
(with a down, Derry, Derry, down, down).

A database analyst walks into a bar and goes up to two tables. "Hi. Can I join you?"

A ham sandwich walks into a bar and the bartender says "Sorry, we don't serve food."

Also in honor of the day:
A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun stops and says, ""Faith and Begorrah! I'm in the wrong joke!"

Steve Burnett @ 33: An ethnographer walks into a bar and asks "How do you order a drink around here?"

Passport to the Pub: A guide to British pub etiquette, an entertaining (and informative) bit of research.

So Route 66, the M25, I90 and the New Jersey Turnpike walk into a bar. The barman asks what they're having, and Route 66 orders four Budweisers. The M25 looks at him a bit funny but the barman serves the drinks. The New Jersey Turnpike asks for some change for the pool table, and the four freeways go over and start playing.

All's well for half an hour until a long, thin, orange piece of tarmac walks in and, in a high squeaky voice, orders a vodka and tonic. The barman's looking over at the pool table at this point, and all four roads are trying to hide behind it.

Once's he's served the piece of tarmac, the barman wanders over and nonchalantly whispers, "Hey, what's with you guys? Big strong roads like you, I'm surprised you're afraid of anything!"

And the M25 whispers back, "Yeah, but he's a cyclepath!"

An Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walk into a bar. Each orders a Guinness, and as they're served, a fly lands in each pint.

The Englishman sniffs at the affrontery of the fly and pushes his beer away in disgust.

The Scotsman blinks for a moment, shrugs, and tosses the pint back.

The Irishman turns bright red, fishes the fly out of the beer, and holds it over his glass shouting at it: "SPIT IT OUT, YE WEE BUGGER! SPIT IT OUT!"

Three women leave the office together and go to the nearest bar. As they get a table, the brunette notices a whitish puddle on the floor and exclaims, "Ew! Is that sperm?" The redhead leans over a little, and remarks, "Yep. Definitely."

The blonde leans over and dips a finger in the puddle. Licking her finger, she says, "Well, it isn't anybody from our office."

Oh, all right. A fried rasher of bacon, a fried egg and a slice of toast walk into a bar ... "Sorry, we don't serve breakfast here."

an irishman is walking on the beach, when he finds a brass oil lamp, looking exactly like something out of the thousand and one nights.

so he sets to rubbing it, and just as you'd expect, a genie pops out and offers him three wishes.

"anything I want? well i've no doubt what my first wish is. genie: give me a bottle of guiness that never runs out!"

the genie hands him a bottle of guiness, and the irishman takes a long swig from it. it's still full. then he pour some into his hands, and laps it up from his hands. it's still full. he stands pouring it into the sand of the beach, and it keeps pouring and pouring. soon he's running around the beach, splashing guiness everywhere. and no matter how much he pours, the bottle never runs out.

"this is brilliant!," he yells, "it never runs out!"

"master, you still have two more wishes," says the genie, "what is your request?"

"i know what i want, then: give me two more just like this!"

So how many Fluorospherians would it take to change a lightbulb?

The entire crowd. Nobody'd want to miss the next comment.

Shinydan Howells@46, I used to live in New Jersey, back before they had to turn most of their ersatz traffic circles into normal intersections to get highway funding. There was an intersection near Camden (on one of the state roads that you could take instead of the NJ Turnpike) that was a fairly good model of the Ballantine Beer three-intersecting-ring logo. I suspect if you accidentally drive into a bar from there, it's Connie Mac's.

My wife and I once went to a Hong Kong action movie, not because we expected it to be good, but because there was simply no way to pass up something with dialog like "Only Deus ex Machina can save you now!"

The Unmarried Mother walked into a bar. He asked the Bartender, "Do you serve Zombies here?"

"Maybe we do, and maybe we don't," said the Bartender circuitously.

"Never mind," said the Unmarried Mother. "I'll have a beer instead."

"Yes, you will," the Bartender replied, filling a tall glass from one of the taps and drinking it.

"Hey, why'd you drink my beer?" the Unmarried Mother exclaimed, an angry expression rising on his face.

"Because, as a matter of fact," the Bartender explained, "we do serve your kin here."

So, a baby seal walks into a club...

A stochastic context-free grammar walks into a bar.

The barman says "Hang on a minute. You're not one of the regulars."

A priest, a rabbi and an elephant walk into a bar.

"Oh goodie," says the barman. "I can't wait to hear your punchline."

--

Three goths walk into a bar

"Ouch !"
"Ouch !"
"Oooh, do that again."

Bill Bailey has a string of fantastic pub jokes but I think this one has to be my favourite of his:

The Chaucer Pubbe Gagge

Three fellowes wenten into a pubbe, And gleefullye their handes did rubbe,
In expectatione of revelrie, For 'twas the houre known as happye.
Greate botelles of wine did they quaffe, And hadde a reallye good laffe.
'Til drunkennesse held full dominione, For 'twas two for the price of one.
Yet after wine and meade and sac, Man must have a massive snack,
Great pasties from Cornwalle! Scottishe eggs round like a balle!
Great hammes, quaile, ducke and geese! They suck'd the bones and drank the grease!
(One fellowe stood all pale and wan, For he was vegetarianne)
Yet man knoweth that gluttonie, Stoketh the fyre of lecherie,
Upon three young wenches round and slye, The fellowes cast a wanton eye.
One did approach, with drunkene winke: "'Ello darlin', you fancy a drink?",
Soon they caught them on their knee, 'Twas like some grotesque puppettrie!
Such was the lewdness and debaucherie - 'Twas like a sketch by Dick Emery!
(Except that Dick Emery is not yet borne - So such comparisonne may not be drawn).
But then the fellowes began to pale, For quail are not the friende of ale!
And in their bellyes much confusione! From their throats vile extrusione!
Stinking foule corruptionne! Came spewinge forth from droolinge lippes,
The fetide stenche did fille the pubbe, 'Twas the very arse of Beelzebubbe!
Thrown they were, from the Horne And Trumpette, In the street, no coyne, no strumpet.
Homeward bounde, must quicklie go, To that ende - a donkey stole!
Their handes all with vomit greased, (The donkey was not pleased,
And threw them into a ditche of shite!) They all agreed: "Wha a brillant night!"

I spy the fine structure constant (although Heisenberg didn't have much to do with it).

Mary Aileen, #936 from #136, I have a piece of wall art that I bought at a Minicon that is very close to the Supernovas Black fabric.

@50

the more i reflect on it, the more i feel that i heard that joke from kieran healy.

if it was not from him, then it was from someone else with an equal right to tell it.

Jacque @ 13: That second joke is very similar to a Polish one told in my family. It translates roughly to:

How does a sparrow differ? In that one of its legs is more so.

Very neat that it has variants.

Also, hello everyone. I'm fairly new here but have been reading lots over the past month or so, and this is my first time commenting.

A carboxylic acid group, an amino group and a halogen all go to a postmodern film festival to present their work.

Naturally, the carboxylic acid wins. After all, it's the best meta director...

Welcome, Kaja!

Another variant: What's the difference between a duck? Four oranges, because a vest has no sleeves.

Kathryn #44:

A leprechaun walks into a bar, and goes over to a table where there's a giant rabbit and a pink elephant. He sees they're both drunk and says, "Drat, you started without me." The gorilla says "Damn right we did, you were supposed to be here by 6'o clock!" The leprechaun answers "Yeah, sorry about that, I ran into Rabbi Cohen and Father O'Malley...."

The Buddha walks into a pizza joint and says, "Make me one with everything..."

A teabagger walks into a bar and orders a drink, and the bartender says "Show me your birth certificate."

Christopher Marlowe and Graham Greene walk into a bar. "Why, this is a joke!" says Greene, and Marlowe replies, "Nor are we out of it."

Our family version was similar to Xopher's:

What's the difference between an orange? A bicycle, because a vest doesn't have any sleeves.

Welcome, Kaja.

A guy walks into a bar and says "Give me something strong with a twist!"
Barkeep hands him a drill bit.

Welcome, Kaja. Do you write poetry?

My father's standby:

How Long is a Chinaman.

A bear walks into a bar, and orders a beer. "Sorry, we don't serve bears," the barman replies.

The bear, enraged, roars loudly, and then repeats his order. "I told you, we don't serve bears," comes the response.

The bear rears up, smashing mighty paws down on the bar and snarling. Calm as anything, the barman restates his position: "We don't serve bears."

The bear smashes his paws down snarls and roars, and bites into the bar, so enraged he tears loose a piece of the wood and swallows it. The barman sighs. "Look, I've told you three times, we don't serve bears. And we certainly don't serve drug users!"

The bear frowns at this. "But I don't do drugs!"

"Don't you lie to me," the barman says. "I saw that bar bit you ate."

(I can see I'm going to have to avoid this thread while at work, or everyone else is going to be in my cubicle, wondering what's wrong with me.)

A sans-serif font walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "We don't serve your type."

Bruce Arthurs #54: Fooey, I'm not getting that one. Even reading "kind" for "kin". :-(

Sorry to interrupt the jokes, but: R.I.P. Alex Chilton.

It happens that I told the Mike Ford joke just this Sunday to my game group. All of them loved it. I love my friends.

(The bar jokes Sunday came about because one of them had recently read a article about young Brooklyn hipsters bringing their babies into bars, and then complaining vociferously about people smoking outside the bar, about drinkers using bad language, etc. I suggested:

A baby walks into a bar. He goes "Waaaah!")

David Harmon @ 76 -- The joke is based on Heinlein's story "-- All You Zombies --", in which nyy bs gur punenpgref (vapyhqvat gur "Hazneevrq Zbgure" naq gur onegraqre) ner gur fnzr crefba ng qvssrerag cnegf bs n irel gnatyrq crefbany gvzr yvar.

@27--

abi's dutch joke on german humourlessness has gotten the biggest snort from me so far.

anyone remember monty python on the killer joke, and the german inability to retaliate?

"there were zwei peanuts, walking down der strasse, and one of them was, assaulted. peanut."

(confused looks all around).

it's unfair, really, since i've known several german people with excellent senses of humor. really.

I might have heard this here, but I don't remember:

A robot walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve robots."
The robot replies, "Oh, but you will."

What's blue and smells like red paint? Blue paint.

David Harmon @ #76:
"Fooey, I'm not getting that one."

You're making me feel old, David. (Oh wait, I am old. Crap.)

If there was one classic story I'd have thought everyone's read (especially the group here), or at least heard of, it would have been this one.

Our family variant on that one went:

Why is a rat when he spins?

Because the higher he goes, the fewer.

Adolphus Busch, Frederick Miller, and Arthur Guinness walk into a bar. Col. Busch orders a Budweiser. Mr. Miller orders a Miller Lite. Mr. Guinness orders a Coke.

"Hey Art," says Miller, "what's with the Coke?"

Guinness replies "Well, if you guys aren't going to order beer, I won't either."

Joel Polowin: Ahh, thanks! (Zragvbavat gur anzr "Wnar" zvtug unir urycrq.)

David: I took it to be a twist on Heinlein's 'All You Zombies', which starts in a bar and in which, not to spoil it too much, the Unmarried Mother is a major protagonist.

A pirate walks into a bar with a ship's wheel in his pants.

"That looks uncomfortable," the bartender says.

"Arrr," says the pirate, "It's drivin' me nuts."

How many Witches does it take to change a lightbulb?

None. Witches aren't afraid of the Dark.

Theophylact@66: ...then the Buddhist pays for his $8.00 pizza with a ten, and gets nothing back from the man behind the counter. Finally, he asks "Where's my change?" And the pizza mans says "Change comes from within."

My favorite: How many flies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Only two, but the real question is how you get them in there.

Oh man. We had an improv sketch that was called 187. It's the standard bar joke; you get a profession as a suggestion and then a group of you comes up with as many jokes as you can. The format's like this:

187 [whatevers] walk into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve [whatevers] here." and 187 [whatevers] say, [something suitably punny.]

So here's some of my favorites:

187 cucumbers walk into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve cucumbers here." and 187 cucumbers say, "But we came here to get pickled!"

187 Jesuits walk into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve Jesuits here." and 187 Jesuits say, "Fine," and leave, and the bar goes out of business. (Went to a Jesuit college, can you tell?)

187 bartenders walk into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve bartenders here." and 187 bartenders reply, "We don't serve bartenders here." The first one gets confused, leaves, and the rest serve themselves.

187 lawyers walk into a bar. They fail.

A brain walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "If you think I'm serving you you're out of your skull."

Ooh, I was wondering if anyone else was going to mention the fine structure constant! 137 is an interesting number for spectroscopists and atomic physicists, because the fine structure constant (a.k.a. α, a.k.a. e²/ℏc) is a dimensionless number that's pretty close to 1/137.

Back in the old days before the measurements were very precise some people thought it might be exactly equal to 1/137, which made it seem as if there was something very special about the integer 137. There was a time (brief, I think) when some physicists were speculating, in an almost mystical way, about the the mathematical properties of that fundamental and magical number. And there's even a famous spoof paper by Beck, Bethe, and Riezler (yes, that Bethe), which they actually got published in Die Naturwissenschaften, making fun of the numerology of 137.

Because it hasn't appeared here yet:

A man walks into a bar and does a double take when he sees, standing calmly at the far end of the bar, a stallion. Beside the horse is a large jar filled with $100 bills. The man orders a drink and, unable to fathom the horse's presence, asks the bartender about it.

"Oh, it's a little contest," replies the bartender. "The first person to make the horse laugh wins the money."

The man has another drink to think it over, then walks over and whispers in the stallion's ear. The horse laughs until it falls down, and the bartender congratulates the man, who takes his jar of $100s and leaves.

A few weeks later, the man returns to the bar and, once again, sees the stallion and a new jar of $100s. He orders a drink and asks, "So what's the contest this time?"

"First one to make the horse cry wins the money," says the bartender.

Again, the man ponders the situation. "May I take the horse into the back alley?"

The bartender, suspicious, says, "You can't hurt the horse."

"I won't touch him," the man replies. "I promise."

The dubious bartender agrees, and the man leads the horse out of the bar. Moments later, the stallion walks back in, head drooping and weeping fit to break his heart. The man walks back in, picks up the jar of money, and starts to walk out.

"Now wait a minute!" says the bartender. "I thought nobody could ever make that stallion laugh or cry, and you've done both! How?"

The man, a sly smile on his face, replies, "The first time, I told him my John Thomas was bigger than his. This time, I proved it."

A six foot tall rabbit, a pink elephant, and a giant anaconda walk and slither into a bar and the bartender says, "You're early, guys, I only just served him his first drink of the evening."

my favorite jokes that make no sense:

quick, ask me if i'm a tree!
(are you a tree?)
no.

two turtles are sitting in the bath. the first says to the second, "could you please pass me the soap?" the second gives the first a funny look and says, "what do i look like, a toaster?"

Two bears are in a bathtub, washing. One asks the other for the soap. The other one replies "No soap; radio."

A man walks into a bar with a piece of asphalt draped over his shoulder. "I'd like a beer, and one for the road."

Steve C. @ 42:
So these three bars walk into a Gantt chart...

A. J. @ 63:
Q: What's C3H7 - O - {Sam, Jane, George, Mary...}?
A: A propyl people ether

Chaos @ 73:

A bear walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a shot and ......... a beer."

The bartender says, "Why the big pause?"

The bear looks down at his feet and says, "I ... dunno. My dad ... had 'em too."

(Stolen from Phil Frank's local San Francisco comic strip, "Farley")

Bruce @ 94 - Have you read the Theodore Geisel story on that topic?

Into the bar walks a man dressed all in green, who is only a foot high.

"Excuse my mentioning it," says the barman, "but you're only a foot high."

"To be sure," says the little man. "I'm a leprechaun."

"Oh, really?"

"No, O'Reilly."

Duck walks into a bar. "Do you have any corn?"

Chicken walks into a library and says, "Book! Book!"

The librarian gives it a book. It walks out.

Ten minutes later, it's back. "Book! Book!"

The librarian gives it another book. Off it goes.

Ten minutes later, it's back. "Book! Book!"

The librarian gives it another book. This time, when the chicken leaves, the librarian follows it.

The chicken takes the book down to a pond, drops it on the ground, and says, "Book! Book!"

A frog crawls out of the reeds, glances at the book, and says, "Read it."

A clown walks into a bar and orders a gin and tonic. The barman serves him.
A 2nd clown walks into the bar and orders a gin and tonic. The barman serves him.
A 3rd clown walks into the bar and orders a gin and tonic. The barman serves him.
A 4th clown walks into the bar and orders a gin and tonic. The barman serves him.
A 5th clown walks into the bar and orders a gin and tonic. The barman serves him.
...
A 19th clown walks into the bar and orders a gin and tonic. The barman serves him.
A 20th clown walks into the bar and the barman says, "Let me guess: Gin and tonic?"

"No," says the 20th clown. "Just a lemonade for me - I'm the designated driver."

Andrew @ 99:

I don't think so, What's the title?

Three humans walk into a vampire bar. After a couple of hours they come out again, and one of them complains to the others, "I'm never going back there with you; I got stuck for all the drinks!"

Three humans walk into a vampire bar. After a couple of hours they come out again, and one of them complains to the others, "I'm never going back there with you; I got stuck for all the drinks!"

Humph. I submitted that twice because I got an error the first time that said I had submitted too many comments in a short period. When did you install the Server Irony Error Module?

John Galt walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "Who are you?"

Fragano Ledgister @ 71: No I do not (or rather, haven't since I was 13 or so, and some things just plain shouldn't be revisited). As an English Literature grad student, though, I spend plenty of time reading and blithering about it at length.

How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Wombat.

Question regarding the original joke: Pauli was excluded?

This video was shared on Boing Boing a while back: A virus walks into a bar...

Bb, Db, and F walk into a bar. "Sorry", the bartender says, "we don't serve minors". So Db left, and Bb and F had an open fifth between them.

A man walked into a bar, sat down at the bar in front of the bar tender and asked for a beer. However, he couldn't pay but instead would show the bar tender something amazing. "Show it then", said he.

So the man reached into his pockets and pulled out a little piano. Then he reached again and pulled out a little stool. Finally he reached again and out came a little man, no more than ten inches high. This little guy then started playing the piano beautifully.

"Wow", said the bar tender and poured the beer, "where did you get him".

"Well", said the man, I found this old lamp and rubbed it and out popped a genie who'd give me one wish".

"Do you still have the lamp", asked the bar tender.

"Sure, and you can use it if you want in return for another couple of beers, but I have to warn you. The genie is a little deaf"

"Öh?"

"Well, did you really think I asked for a ten inch pianist?"

Kaja @ 108:
How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two to hold the giraffe, and seven to fill the bathtub with brightly painted machine tools.

And an old Dutch one:

A man walks into a bar in a hurry, doesn't take his coat off and goes up to the bar tender and says "Quick, quick. Pour me a beer before the trouble starts".

So the bar tender does, though slightly worried. The man downs his beer in one big gulp and once again says "quick, quick pour me another one before the trouble starts".

So the bar tender does so again, the man once again drains his beer and says "quick, quick, a third one before the trouble starts".

The bar tender, now thoroughly spooked says, "look buddy, what's this trouble you're expecting?"

Says he, draining his third beer: "the trouble is, Í can't pay you for these beers".

My current favourite joke, which I heard on Radio 4 recently, and I wish I could remember who told it:

There was a little English cat called One Two Three and a little French cat called Un Deux Trois, who decided to swim the English Channel/La Manche/whatever.

The little English cat arrived safely on the other side, but there was no sign of the little French cat. Everyone was wondering what had happened, and eventually word came:

Un Deux Trois Quatre Cinq

#111 That's why I get followed everywhere by a stork and cat that never pays for anything.

(waits...)

And, while we're waiting, veteran comedy writer Barry Cryer's favourite gag:

A man walks into a bar, and his head is half an orange. "Pint of beer please". The barman serves him, but can't help staring.

"What?"
"I'm sorry, it's very rude of me..."
"*sigh*It's the half an orange head isn't it?"
"Well... yes. How come..."
"Well, a couple of years ago, I was clearing out the attic, and I found this old sea chest that belonged to my grandfather. Amazing bloke, travelled all over. Anyway, in this chest was this rusty old lamp.

"So, of course I polished it, the attic filled with smoke and a might Djinn materialised bellowing 'Free! Free at last! Oh benificent master, before I return to the dreaming spires of Irem, I will grant you three wishes!'

"Well, I thought for a little while and said 'I'd like me and my family and friends to have eternal life, youth and health'. The djinn clapped his hands, saying 'It is done, what is your second wish?'

"I thought a little more and said 'I'd like a wallet that always has ten thousand pounds in it, no matter how much I spend.' The djinn clapped his hands, 'It is done, what is your last wish, oh wise and benificent one?'

"Well, I thought and thought and thought, and finally said ...'Do you think you could turn my head into half an orange?'"

My husband came up with this one as a sort of I-can't-operate-that's-my-son to ask at cons. A leprechaun, a neutron, and a quark walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "Hi, boss." Who is he talking to?

One beautiful tribute to Alex Chilton already up (by James and April Combs, formerly of Arson Garden).

Jenny: Is the bartender's name "Rom"?

Bruce Cohen (Speaker To Managers) @106: The rule, I've learned, is that whatever the error message says, it probably went through. Close the tab, open ML again and it'll be there.

A man's sitting in a bar when he notices an attractive young woman at another table. He goes over to her and says: "Excuse me, can I buy you a drink?"
"NO, I WILL NOT SLEEP WITH YOU!" she yells. The whole bar falls quiet. Deeply embarassed, the man goes back to his table.

A few minutes later the woman comes over to him. "I'm dreadfully sorry," she whispers. "You see, I'm a psychology student and I'm doing this experiment on social behaviour."

The man replies:
"NO, I WILL NOT GIVE YOU FIFTY POUNDS!"

Leonardo da Vinci walks into a bar. There he encounters Michelangelo. They begin to chat.

"So I hear you're an artist," says Leonardo.

"That's right."

"What kind of art do you do?"

"Some sculpture, some painting," says Michelangelo.

"Painting, huh? Where can I go see your painting?"

Michelangelo begins to sing.

"I... left... my... ARRRRT
In Sistine FRESCOES...."

If there are three flies in the kitchen, how do you tell which one is a cowboy?

It's the one on the range.

A woman walked into a bar and asked the bartender for an innuendo.

So he gave her one.

I thought innuendo was an Italian suppository?

Shakespeare walks in to a pub, asks for a pint - landlord says "bugger off, you're Bard!"

---

Thales and Heraclitus walk into a pub and start drinking. Heraclitus takes a sip, and Thales downs a pint; Heraclitus takes a sip, and Thales downs a pint. They go back and forth like this eight times.

They walk out, and Heraclitus says "Shall I drive?"
Thales replies "Best not; you've had eight pints and I've been on the water all night."

Here is a genuine German joke. Told to me by a genuine German. In Germany. (Apologies if the German {my German, that is} is duff. It was a long time ago.)

- Was machen die Hamburger wenn es regnet?
- Sie machen die Schirme auf.

A tortoise walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Have you seen my dad?" The bartender says, "I dunno, what does he look like?"

Montreal band called Bowser and Blue used to do a set of lightbulb jokes...to the tune of "blowin' in the wind."
How many Harvard grads does it take to change a lightbulb?
How many Harvard grads does it take?
The answer is one, he holds up his hand,
And the world revolves around him...

A man is sitting in a restaurant, perusing the menu. When the waitress comes to take his order, he says, "I'd like a quickie." Affronted, she slaps him and stalks off. Soon the manager comes by, and asks what's going on. The man tells her, "I just asked for a quickie. I really want a quickie." She slaps him and goes to call the cops. The man at the next table leans over and says, "It's pronounced 'quiche'."

A man walks into a restaurant and sits down; the waiter approaches and asks what Sir would like to drink. "Hock," the man responds.
"Hock?" asks the waiter.
"You know, man, hock! Wine! Hic, hoc, haec!"
"Very good, sir," replies the waiter, and leaves.

Some twenty minutes pass, and the man calls the waiter back. "Hey!" he says, "Where's my wine? I ordered it ages ago!"
"You did, sir," the waiter responds, "but then, you declined it."

In Wales, the people of Cardiganshire are stereotyped as being tight with their cash. I suspect there are variations on this one for every group who are meant to be frugal, but this is the one that comedian Max Boyce tells:

Jones the Cardi and his son Berwyn sign up for a sight-seeing tour in a small aircraft. As always, Jones angles for the best deal possible.

‘Very well, Mr. Jones,’ says the pilot. ‘If you can go through the entire flight without screaming once, without yelling, without saying a single word, then you and Berwyn can have your tickets for free.’

So the plane takes off, and the pilot makes sure it’s a rough one. Launches almost straight up, and does a loop at the end. Jones says nothing.

The pilot throws the plane from side to side. Still not a peep from him. He uses every single bit of acrobatics in his repertoire, over and over again, and Jones stays tight-lipped. He even flies the thing upside down without the smallest reaction from the Welshman.

After they land, the pilot turns to Jones in utter disbelief.

‘Mr. Jones, that was incredible,’ he says. ‘I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and no-one’s ever been able to hold back from screaming. Tell me, was there ever a point in the flight, even for a second, where you wanted to say something?’

‘Aye,’ Jones replies. ‘When Berwyn fell out.’

Steve @25:

How do you calculate the number of molecules in one gram-molecule of guacamole?

It's the Avocado constant.

Hi Kaja! Welcome!

@62: (Given that I'm posting without having caught up on the thread, someone will almost certainly have gotten here first, but...) There are several jokes in that suite:

-Why is a mouse when it spins?

-The higher, the fewer.

-What's the difference between a telephone pole?

-A loaf of bread. Ice cream has no bones.

Are there Polish corollaries?

Note to self: don't try to get a taxi on the evening of St. Patrick's day; three hours is too long to wait for one.

Regarding German humour, I'm reminded of an article written by Stewart Lee in the Guardian a number of years ago.

Lee's on tour in the UK at the moment. He's one of the world's finest, smartest stand-ups. If you get a chance to see him, go.

Department of Redundancy Department!

Alex Cohen @ 11, my fiancé's college roommate liked to tell that one, except using the line "Got any grapes?" He did the duck voice and pronounced it "Got any gwapes?" "Got any gwapes?" has passed into in-joke status at our house.

Did you hear the one about the blogger?

The lurkers supported him in e-mail.

A man in a diving suit walks into a bar. And the lobster climbed out from under the soft watch to serve him.

#129:

Reminds me of the choral ones, eg,

Q: How many tenors does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One. He hold the lightbulb and the universe revolves around him

Q: How many altos..?
A: None. It's Too High!

A man leaves the airport and hops into a cab. The cabbie says, "Where to, bud?"

The man says, "I want to get scrod!"

The cabbie says, "I've been all over this city, and that's the first time I heard that request in the third person pluperfect plural!"

Aside from the jokes (which I love), I wanted to make a note about how tasty the Starbucks instant coffee packets are, particularly the Colombian.

Lin Daniel @36, the version I heard of the joke in the O.P. included the throwaway "The bartender is still polishing Descartes's glass."

In the spirit of abi @27: A man walks into a bar. He has a few drinks and chats with the bartender. Later that night, he goes home alone and reflects on the poor decisions he's made in life.

Bruce @ 103 - It's called "The Waiting Room at Dang-Dang", printed in "The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough". Page 33, for what it's worth, since the TOC doesn't list the essays individually.

Andrew @ 104, it looks like that answers the question "What if Theodore Geisel had written the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories?" That would be a heck of a mash-up. heh.

Drat, should be @144, not @104.

Nightsky@31: "A neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer. It arrives, and the neutron goes, 'Great! How much?' The bartender goes, 'For you--no charge.'"

So a drunk neutrino walks into a Mexican bar...

Your Obedient Serpent @83: Diana Wynne Jones uses that same joke in one of her short stories.

Madeley @ 136:

Alas, that Stewart Lee article is largely nonsense, as was pointed out by this Language Log post not long after it appeared.

Despite what Lee claims, there certainly are stand-up comics in Germany, including a Berliner who sets world records for audience size and a sub-genre of Turkish-German comedians.

(But thanks for the recommendation on Lee as a comedian -- I've gone off and watched a couple of videos on YouTube, and he does seem pretty funny.)

Thomas @#140:
Q: How many sopranos does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One to change the lightbulb, and one to hold the ladder and ask if that isn't a little high for you, dear?

Q: What's the difference between a bull and a symphony orchestra?
A: A bull has its horns at the front and its *sshole at the back.

@80, 27: When I was on exchange in college in Norway the German students mocked us Americans with-
"What's the difference between American beer and making love on a boat?"
"They're both f***ing close to water."

Shan, #151: Tangential to that, my partner and I refer to the flavorless, light brown beverage served in some restaurants as "American-beer iced tea".

Being from Minne-snow-ta, we had the "un, deux, trois, cats, sank" punchline with a "Three French-canadian kittens playing on thin ice" lead-in.

How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Just the one, but the lightbulb really has to be ready to work at it.

ba-dum *tsching!*

Q: How many bass players does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. The keyboardist does it with his left hand.

Q: How many folkies does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One to change the lightbulb and ten to complain about it going electric.

Q: How many saxophonists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Fuck the changes, just blow.

Q: What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians all the time?
A: A drummer.

Q: What's the difference between a violin and a viola?
A: A viola burns longer.

Q: What's the difference between a trombonist and a roadkill armadillo?
A: The armadillo was on his way to a gig.

Q: How can you tell a singer is at the door?
A: He can't find the key, and doesn't know when to come in.

In a brief break from your light-bulb merriment, I come to pass on to you this learning: A study of Star Wars as Icelandic Saga.

(Apologies if it's found its way here previously.)

Jacque @ 134: Not that I know of, but these seem to vary a lot by family/small community, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were.

Why do ducks have wide, flat feet?
To stamp out forest fires.

Why do elephants have wide, flat feet?
To put out the flaming ducks.

And in the vein of the choral/orchestra jokes above, here's one from the climbing community:

What's the difference between a mountain guide and God?

God doesn't think he's a mountain guide.

Thanks to everyone for the warm welcomes!

Shan @ 151: That joke is quite popular up here in Canada as well, with "boat" often changed to "canoe".

Library joke: How many catalogers does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but they have to see how the LC does it first.

(Thanks folks, I'll be here all week. Check out my dramatic readings from the AACRII!)

How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one; he hands it to a cataloger, thus reducing it to a previously solved joke.

Back at Jordin #98:

What is the correct way to respond when one has failed an exam on nomenclature priority?

"CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHNN!"

Clifton Royston @112 said: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two to hold the giraffe, and seven to fill the bathtub with brightly painted machine tools.

While preparing for an insanely detailed college-level Art History final (of which 75 questions were to be photos of works we'd never seen before -- made anywhere from the Dawn of Time to 1950 -- that we had to give a short-answer response identifying artistic style or movement), some classmates and I pulled an all-night study session that got really silly.

I pulled out a variant of the joke above (only the two people were painting the giraffe blue, not just holding it), and someone topped me with, "Ok, how many Dadaists? Fish." Someone else said, "Ok, how many Baroque artists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just the one, but it takes five guys to get all those damn cherubs off the fixture first ..." and we were off and running.

I think we came up with a hundred highly-detailed art-style lightbulb jokes that night, and I know they helped me pass the exam. I wish I'd written them down. While some were just accurate enough to help study, some were really funny.

How many impressionists does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they go out in the plein air. And besides, you'd have to put something on the fixture to make it go all speckly.

How many go-to-hell avant-garde performance artists? It's so much edgier just to smash the blown one and leave it in.

How many Canadians does it take to change a light bulb?

One.

How do you identify the bride at a Canadian wedding?

She's the one in the long white fancy dress.

How do you get a bunch of Canadians out of a swimming pool?

Yell "Hey, everybody, OUT OF THE POOL!"

(delurks [1])

Caroline (way up there @8):

"Nope, I’m a frayed knot."

As well as this, I very much like the follow-ups, where the piece of string is replaced by something else, but the punchline retains an (increasingly tortuous) relationship to the original "I’m afraid not." My favourite is this:

James Doohan walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Hey! Didn’t you play Mr. Spock in Star Trek?" Doohan replies: "No, I portrayed Scott." (There’s also one about “a crayed dot”, but not being very techno-computery, I forget how that one works.)

This sort of thing also works with other well known phrases or sayings apart from "I’m afraid not" of course:

A troll walks into a bar wearing a long coat and an ink-blot mask. "Why on earth are dressed like that?" asks the bartender. And the man replies (all together!): "Because Rorschach is what I am doing."

(/gets coat and goes back to lurkland)

[1] At the mention of bar jokes, disappointingly enough; I’d rather hoped I’d delurk when I had an exceptional and brilliant insight into something, but there we are. [2]

[2] Sorry – I’ve not worked out this superscript thing yet.

In David Dyer-Bennett's vein, here's one swiped from Robert Sawyer:

How does a blind man tell who's Canadian at a crowded cocktail party? They're the one who apologizes when you step on their toes.

Kaja @156, if we're doing elephant jokes now:

How can you tell if there's an elephant in your refrigerator?

There are footprints in the butter.

How does an elephant get up a tree?

Sits on an acorn and waits.

How does an elephant get out of the tree?

Sits on a leaf and waits for fall.

Argh. Had to be didn't it? Leave (at least one!) word out of your first post. "Why on earth are you dressed like that?" of course.[1]

Kaja @156 -- the mention of mountains reminds me of my favourite maths joke [2]:

Q: What do you get if you cross a lion and a giraffe?

A: Lion giraffe cos theta.

And the follow up:

Q: What do you get if you cross a giraffe with a mountain climber?

A: You can't because a mountain climber is a scaler.

[1] I noticed I've re-appeared almost instantly after saying I'd gone back to lurkdom. Bit like flounce-return, this, isn't it, although hopefully not as irritating...

[2] It's a very long time since I was a maths student. Apologies if my less than brilliant memory of how vector products work has ruined this and just produced tumbleweed and silence...

Elliott Mason (164): That works to identify Southerners, too.

What's purple and goes slam, slam, slam, slam?
- A four-door grape.

(I love this one for coming so close to actually making sense in joke-logic that it causes mental lock-up for not...quite...getting there.)

If we're going to do elephant jokes ...
Q: Why did the elephant paint its toenails red?
A: To hide in the [cherry tree | strawberry patch].

Q: Does it work?
A: Have you ever seen an elephant in one?

Q: What do you call a hippopotamus who rides a train?
A: A passenger.

A very similar psychologist light bulb joke:

How many non-directive therapists does it take to change a light bulb?

How many would you like there to be?

Q: How can you tell there's an elephant in your refrigerator?

A: You can smell the peanuts on his breath.

"I'm sorry, sir, but animal control regulations say that your 800-pound gorilla cannot, in fact, sit anywhere he wants to."

Okay, let's forget all this stuff about lurking...

Elliott Mason @164:

This reminds me of the time I was on a train with a bunch of Canadian academics. [1]

We got to talking about respective national jokes (I'm English, although I now live in Wales -- the principality, not the cetaceans, which, to be fair, is a "joke" that doesn't work so well in written form, though I remain tremendously fond of it) and one of the Canadian boffins told me his favourite joke:

Q: "How do you get two dozen drunken Canadians out of your swimming pool at three in the morning after a wild party?"

A: You say to them: "Everyone out of the pool now, lads."

[1] This isn't a set up to a joke, it really happened. [2]

[2] and a) I have no idea if "bunch" is the correct term for a grouping of Canadian academics, and b) if I'm going to carry on in this vein, I really must learn how to properly signal footnotes.

Mark W. @ 166: I heard it as:

Q: What do you get when cross a mosquito and a mountain climber?
A: Nothing. You can't cross a vector with a scaler.

173
Your footnotes are fine. Don't worry about it.

(This works better orally than in print.)

Q: How do you circumcise a whale?
A: Send down four skin-divers.

Tim,

Indeed -- I can remember that I found this funny, but my memories of the specifics, and, in fact, how cross and dot products work, is very hazy indeed.

PJ,

Thank you -- I have it my head that numbers in square brackets mean page references, but as long as it's clear enough, I guess...

What's purple and commutes?

An abelian grape.

I like this Mark_W guy!¹

¹Unless he's a girl.²

²In which case I like him anyway.³

³Try typing: ^N

Ah, for the age of ethnic jokes.

Q: Why did the [_____] dog have a bloody nose?
A: From chasing parked cars.

Q: Why does it take a [_____] two days to wash a basement window?
A: 'Cause it takes him a day and a half to dig the hole for the ladder.

Jacque @179,

Well, heavens bless you for saying so.¹

¹ and for the advice on superscripts.²

² Which, through the miracle of the preview button, I see has done the job splendidly.³

³ Hooray!

Mark_W @ #166

Q: What do you get if you cross a lion and a giraffe?
A: Lion giraffe cos theta.

(People will say just "lion giraffe sin theta", but in this case I think precision is funnier than brevity. YMMV.)

Well, if we're off the bar jokes...

What's gray, has two big ears and a trunk?

A mouse going on holiday!

What's brown, has two big ears and a trunk?

A suntanned elephant!!

See how I fooled with your mind there....?

For the multilinguals, I offer this:

Q: Pourquoi Nicolas Sarkozy mange-t-il qu'un oeuf pour le petit dejeuner?

A: Parce que one egg, ca suffit.

And for abi at 27:

A man goes into a baker's, and says 'I'd like to roll around'. The reply comes: 'OK, provided it's not too dirty on the floor'

('Ich moechte gern r(h)umkruegelen.''Meinetwegen, wenn es nich zu schmuetzig am Fussboden ist')

So...

What's small and yellow and goes "ho ho ho"?

Santa Banana.

What's small and yellow and doesn't get wet when it rains?

A canary with an umbrella.

What's small and yellow and goes "put put put"?

An outboard lemon.

As a bonus: what's yellow and creamy and really dangerous?

Shark-infested custard.

Tim #174:

*Snork*

Graydon #178:

The nice thing about Abelian grapes is that they taste just the same, no matter what order you eat them in.

Mark_W: Are you any relation to abi? There's a certain...resemblance¹.

¹Not accusing abi of having a sock-puppet.^2
2Though this is a very nice sock-puppet if s/he were.^3
3I think you may have created a new Making Light tradition/running joke here.^4
4Which I will now proceed to beat to death.⁵

And you can do subscripts_N with the same markup save use b instead of p.

⁵Well, except abi probably really started it, but that just supports my allegation above, n'est-ce pas?

Tim @182,

Thank you, it's all starting to come back to me now...

In this case I think precision is funnier than brevity

I think you're right, I laughed out loud again reading you setting it out in full...

:-)

Why did the dinosaur lose interest in sex?

Because he had a reptile dysfunction.

Now that it's safe to leave the bar, my Favorite Riddle Ever, which is funniest when said aloud but you can't have everything, can you:

Q: Why does a chicken coop have two doors?
A: Because if it had four doors, it'd be a chicken sedan.

Eric:

I guess he hadn't gotten all the email ads offering him diagra?

In the aftermath of the coup against the Double Kings of New Sparta, the revolutionary council decided not, as was common practice, to strip the ex-kings of all wealth and valubles to pay for the revolution. Instead, they were allowed to keep all offshore accounts, allowed to take several suitcases of valuables each, and given the royal executive jet to fly them to the first destination in their exile, New Athens.

On arriving, their majesties hired a limo and had themselves driven to the nearest bar. They walked in, walked past the bartender, and began to eat from the Free Lunch Buffet. After completely cleaning out the buffet, they sat down at the bar and ordered beers to quench the thirst created by all that salty food.

As he served up the beer, the bartender asked, "What was with the food? I've never seen anyone eat so much from the buffet in such a short time."

One of the kings replied, "It's simple. What deposes Us and does not bill Us, makes Us hungry."

This seems to be the thread for temporary de-lurking¹, so in response to Martin @111:

A man sits down at the bar and asks the pretty female bartender for a drink. While she pours a beer, he pulls out a tiny piano from his backpack, sets it on the table, and looks at it mournfully.

What's the story? the bartender asks.

Alas, says the guy, this piano is the finest of its kind, the last thing that the late, great, Pa Steinway himself crafted by hand. But I've never heard it played the way it's meant to be. I once found a bottle with a genie, and wished for a ten-inch pianist to play it, but the genie must have been hard of hearing after so many years in his bottle...

Say no more, says the barkeep, will you come home with me tonight?

¹ I'm with Mark_W on this - de-lurking on a thread about bar jokes², rather than with a brilliant flash of insight? Oh well...

² And non-bar jokes, too³.

³ And running gags.

lorax @ 165, Mark W @173 (bear with me down this set):

How many elephants can you get in a Mini?
Four, two in the front, two in the back

How do you get two whales in a Mini?
Down the M5 then turn west.*

How can you tell there's an elephant in your refrigerator?
Footprints in the butter.

How can you tell there are two elephants in your refrigerator?
Footprints in the butter.

How can you tell there are three elephants in your refrigerator?
The door won't shut.

How can you tell there are four elephants in your refrigerator?
There's a Mini parked outside.

(Okay, so it works better with several other jokes in between).

* Yeah, works better verbally.

Q: Why do Marxists drink herbal tea?

A: Because property is theft.

Graydon@178:

The abelian grape joke is by far the best mathematical pun ever (not that the competition is terribly strong.)

In the same vein, slightly more technical

Q: What's sour and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?
A: Zorn's Lemon

Q: What's green and homeomorphic to the open unit interval?
A: The real lime.

Myself @ 194 The third one should, of course, be:

How can you tell there are two elephants in your refrigerator?
Two sets of footprints in the butter.

Jacque @187,

Are you any relation to abi?

Alas no; although heavens bless you¹ for mentioning me in the same sentence as someone so brilliant and talented...

Well, except abi probably really started it.

Oh absolutely. Who was it² who said, "If you going to copy something, copy from the best"?

¹again!

²It was Francis Ford Coppola, I think³ when questioned about the increasing resemblance of the Godfather films to King Lear⁴

³ It was either him or somebody else, at any rate.

⁴ And it was either King Lear or some other Shakespeare⁵ play.

⁵ You're bard!⁶

⁶ Sorry, I've forgotten the comment number above where the Shakespeare/bard joke appeared...

How many Marxists does it take to change a lightbulb?

None; each lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.

(Welcome, lurkers, who are not me*†‡. Anyone write poetry?)

-----
* You can tell because I use glyph-based footnote markers.
† And, indeed, anyone who is me‡
‡ s/me/I/ if you're being grammatical§.
§ Another way to tell it's me‡ is footnotes that need to be footnoted**.
** Circularly if possible

Ah, the bad old jokes.

Q. What do you get if you cross an elephant and a rhinoceros?
A. Elephino.

Q. What do you get if you try to cross two roosters?
A. Two cross roosters.

(for the musicians)
Q. What is perfect pitch?
A. Throwing an accordion so that it lands on a banjo.

(and there's gotta be lightbulbs)
Q. How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. 50. One to change it and 49 to figure out what to do with the old one.

Q. How many NASA engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Only one, but the ladder won't be ready for ten years, and new bulb costs $10,000,000 and has a left-hand thread.

Wow. Elephant jokes. I haven't heard one of those in years....

Okay, how 'bout knock-knock jokes?¹

A: Knock-knock.
B: Who's there?
A: Dwane.
B: Dwane who?
A: Dwane the bathtub, I'm dwouning.

... A: Viper.
... A: Veendow viper. Ju vant ju veendows viped?

¹I discovered the hard way that knock knock jokes are really hard to tell to people who have only recently learned English.

In the spirit of dcb@194:

Q: How to you get an elephant in your refrigerator?
A: Open the door, put in the elephant, close the door.

Q: How to you get a giraffe in your refrigerator?
A: Open the door, take out the elephant, put in the giraffe, close the door.

Q: The lion, as king of the jungle, called a meeting of all the animals. Who didn't come?
A: The giraffe, since it was locked in the fridge.

Q: You need to cross an crocodile-infested river. How do you do it?
A: Swim. The crocodiles are at the lion's meeting.

Thomas@196: Ah, I like "sour"; I've mostly heard it with "yellow", which is okay too, but getting slightly surprised is nice¹.

Graydon@178: I think the Abelian grape is my favorite. My father was an algebraist, taught college math all his life. And he hadn't heard it before I told him. I was pleased!

Mark_w@166: I learned it as crossing an Elephant with a grape², but it's all good. I don't generally bother with the absolute values for the joke, but they're correct.

¹ Besides, I do like sour.

² Probably because I got it next door to the Abelian grape.

Oo! Oo! Oo! I can trot out my DEC joke:

Q: How do you know which person in the parking lot is DEC service rep?
A: He's the one swapping out the tires on the car to figure out which one is flat. And if that doesn't work, he makes the passengers get out and sit in different seats to see if it's operator error.

Yes, SBC, it's hard to go wrong with bad jokes.

Q: How many Boulderites/Californians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: [BC]*s don't screw in lightbulbs, they screw in hot tubs.

Q: How many [BC]*s does it take to water a plant?
A: Four. One to water the plant, one to talk to the plant, one to mist the plant's leaves with Perrier, and one to share the experience.

Q: How many Oregonians does it take to water a plant?
A: Five. One to water the plant, and four to fend off the Californians trying to horn in on the experience.

*Wildcard, not a footnote.

Some time ago, I was visiting home and having a fun dinner with family, and the subject of zombie jokes came up. I told one, I think someone else chimed in, then I brought up the Scalzi Whatever thread about them... and my mother was mystified. It took her several minutes to figure them out. Not as weird a cognitive disconnect as trying to explain Apples to Apples to her, but it's close.

The best part about zombie jokes is that, at least in my family, none of us can remember more than three or so. Every time they break out, we have to come up with them more or less de novo. Happily, this is not difficult.

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?
The Holocaust.

Thomas:

Homeomorphic to the real lime? Doesn't that mean you have to dilute the lime a bunch of times?

OK, it’s been thirty years since I last told this joke; I’ll try to get it right.

A charter flight filled with Polish tourists was coming in for a landing at Kennedy airport. As it began its approach, the pilot announced that the Statue of Liberty would be visible on the right ¹. As the tourists crowded to peer out the windows, the aircraft suddenly became unstable and crashed.

Later, the FAA determined the cause of the instability: All of the Poles were on the right-hand side of the plane. ²

¹This was pre-TSA.
²Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion. Electrical engineering reference about the location of poles and zeroes in the complex plane and control system stability.

A physicist, an engineer, and a computer programmer were in a car together, driving through the mountains. As they were descending a mountain, the brakes failed. The car sped up to some unreasonable speed, but somehow the guy driving it got it under control, slowed it down, and finally got them stopped in one piece at the bottom of a long, steep descent.

They got out of the car, opened the hood, and looked around to see what had happened. After a moment, the physicist said "I know why this happened." The engineer then said "I know how to fix it." And the computer programmer responded "I'm not sure there's really a problem, let's push it back up the mountain and see if it happens again."

DD-B @203 --

The Abelian Grape is one of those things that feels like it actually makes some truly sensical value of sense at some times; it doesn't, but it feels like it almost ought to.

I prefer the sour version of Zorn's lemon, too.

Thomas @196 --

It's entirely possible I haven't heard the "real lime" one before; thank you! (I am fortunate in having few nearby cubicle neighbors to hear me groan.)

Oh, well if we're into vehicle jokes, I can tell my favorite:

"I used to have a Heisenberg car, but I had to sell it."
"Why?"
"Every time I looked at the speedometer I got lost."

<falls over!>

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Philip Glass. Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Philip Glass. Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Philip Glass. Knock-knock!
....

At one time, Trader Joe's sold a variety of coffee labelled as 'Heisenberg's Blend' - it was coffee where the roasting company had lost track of the variety.

[Musical light bulbs...]

Q: How many choral conductors does it take to change a light bulb?

A: No one knows, no one was watching.

[Math puns]

Q: What is purple, commutes, and is worshiped by a limited number of people?

A: A finitely venerated abelian grape.

[Guy walks into a bar joke]

Guy walks into a bar with a cute little dog. Says to the bartender

G: "This is my talking dog!"

B: "Yeah, right."

G: "Here, I'll show you. Fido, what do you call the top of a house?"

F: Roof!

B: Oh, come on...

G: Fido, how would you describe sandpaper?

F: Rough!

B: Ok, now I'm annoyed. I'll tell you what -- I'll ask him a question, and if he answers in clear English, you can drink free all night. But otherwise I throw you out of here.

G: Ok, you've got a deal.

B: Who was the greatest baseball player of all time?

[A few minutes later, as Fido is licking Guy's face on the pavement outside]

F: You think maybe I should have said "DiMaggio"?

Peter Erwin @ 159:

Hah, I had no idea Lee was talking out of his backside on that one.

Here's a YouTube of the Clement Freud gag that I remember seeing via a link here a while ago.

I love the elephant jokes! They're so ridiculous but they always make me laugh.

Here's a joke about Finns (who are known for not being very talkative).

Three Finns are sitting on a porch drinking when a rabbit hops past.

A day goes by.

The first Finn says "Huh, a white rabbit!"

Another day passes.

The second Finn says "It was a brown rabbit."

Another day passes.

The third Finn says "Are we going to drink or are we going to talk?"

(Hi! My name's fansler and I've been reading for a long time. I'm also a Finn, which might explain why it's taken me so long to say anything!)

More musician jokes:

What's the difference between a violin and a viola?
The viola holds more beer.

What do you call a drummer who's broken up with his girlfriend?
Homeless.

A tuba player walks out of a bar.

And an engineer joke:

What's the difference between a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer?
Mechanical engineers make weapons. Civil engineers make targets.

Abi @199¹

(Welcome, lurkers, who are not me. Anyone write poetry?)²

You can tell because I use glyph-based footnote markers¹¹.

¹ Good score for a cricketer that (199, I mean). Excellent average-boosting century, although a fine for jug-avoidance may soon ensue...

² Heavens bless you³ for asking the question. (I’ve been lurking a while). My answer is “no”⁴

³ I don’t get paid each time I say this, honestly!

⁴ At least for certain values of “no”.⁵

⁵ Now I seem to be copying at least one of our brilliant hosts as well!⁶

⁶ What I mean is, I love poetry, and have read S. Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled: It is,⁷, virtually impossible for anyone for whom these two situations obtain, to have not at least tried the various exercises in said tome⁸.

⁷ I’d aver...

⁸ What I mean is, I yield to no-one in my admiration of (in particular) Keats, but I don’t⁹ think my Fry-induced efforts¹⁰ amount to “writing poetry.”

⁹ Yet, at any rate...

¹⁰ Which, essentially, amount to finishing something that is, technically if not artistically, a villanelle.

¹¹ Quite right. Even if I knew how to do the glyph-based markers, I’d have left them to the originating genius...

:-)

And of course, I forgot the elephant joke.

How do you get down off an elephant?
You don't get down off an elephant, you get down off a duck!

Abi @ 210 -

I love that so much I'm filing off the serial numbers and stealing it!

I have just found my copy of Price/Stern/Sloan's Elephants, Grapes and Pickles.

I knew it's wasn't in the refrigerator or the giraffe would have pointed it out...

What's green and has sideburns and plays guitar?
Elvis Parsley.

What's purple and wants to conquer the world?
Alexander the Grape.

What do you get when you cross peanut butter with an elephant?
Either (1) peanut butter with a very long memory or (2) an elephant that sticks to the roof of your mouth.

What's purple and lights up?
An electric grape.

How did Tarzan hurt his foot?
Trying to make wine from electric grapes.

What's green and squishy and spends a lot of time under water?
An avocado with an aqualung.

And finally (for the moment), what's yellow, wears a mask, and never smokes or drinks?
The Lone Banana.

Why did he become the Lone Banana?
He got tired of being one of the bunch.

A physicist, a statistician and a mathematics professor were all having lunch together on the patio of a café across the street from a vacant building. Whilst they're ordering, two people go into the vacant building. Over the course of the meal, three people leave it.

"Ah," says the physicist. "Our initial assumptions were incorrect."

"Ah," says the statistician. "We have made a sampling error."

"Ah," nods the maths prof sagely. "If one more person goes into the building, it will be empty again."

Can't believe the classic drummer joke hasn't shown up yet:

What's got three legs and an arsehole?

A drum stool.

true story, from the priest in question:

An episcopal priest is teaching at Tulane in New Orleans. He has two sisters from St. Benedict's in MN come down to do a guest lecture about monastic life. They happily teach, wearing the distinctive veils and habits of their order. When the sisters were done, they had an extra afternoon to be tourists.

"Where do you want to go?" asks the good father, assuming some of the museums or other cultural sights of his city.

"How about Bourbon Street?"

So they walk around Bourbon Street for a while, looking in all sorts of interesting retail establishments. It got to be dinner time and he mentioned some of the fine, longstanding culinary institutions for which NOLA is justly famous.

No, said the sisters. "How far is it to the Hard Rock Cafe?"

In shock, but always the gracious host, he leads them onward and holds the door open as they walk in...and realizes:

Two nuns and a priest walk into the Hard Rock Cafe...

He's been trying to figure out the punchline ever since.

Jacque @ 201: Knock-knock jokes?

A: Knock-knock!
B: Who's there?
A: Cthul!
B: Cthul who?
*both A and B are devoured*

Have the musicians here heard the one about the tenor who was so stupid, the other tenors noticed?

...

Jacque, 204:

How can you tell the guy on the highway with the flat tire is a hardware engineer?

He's swapping out the tires to see which one has the flat.

How can you tell the guy on the highway with the empty gas tank is a software engineer?

He's swapping out the tires to see which one has the flat.

...

A favorite bilingual joke of mine:

The chief rabbi of Great Britain was receiving a knighthood, so the Lord Chamberlain spent a day walking him through the ceremony, including rehearsing the Latin phrase he needed to recite when the queen did whatever it is she does at these things.

Well, when the time came, the rabbi was so nervous, he completely forgot the Latin phrase he was supposed to say. So instead, thinking quick, he said the first foreign phrase he could bring to mind: "Ma nishtana halaila hazeh mikol halailot."

The queen was puzzled by this, turned to the Lord Chamberlain, and asked him, "Why is this knight different from all the other knights?"

Mark_W @ 218: Anyone who can use "aver" correctly is probably going to fit right in here.

Okay, 'plane landing jokes. It's about three months late for this one really, but hey...

As the El Al plane came in for a landing at Ben Gurion airport, the voice of the captain came on:

"Please remain seated with your seat belts fastened until this plane has come to a complete stop and the seat belt signs have been turned off.

"We also wish to remind you that cell phones may not be used until the exit doors have been opened.

"To those who are still seated, we wish you a Merry Christmas, and hope that you enjoy your visit to Israel.

"To those of you standing in the aisles and talking on your cell phones, we wish you a Happy Chanukah, and welcome back home."

(Thank you Siobhan for sending me that one)

And to cover the rest of the band:

How do you slow lead guitarists down?

Put sheet music in front of them.

How many bassists does is take to change a lightbulb?

One, but a guitarist has to show them how to first.

Q: What does a stripper do with her asshole before going to work?
A: Drop him off at band practice.

Q: How do you address a drummer in a three-piece suit?
A: "Will the defendant please rise?"

What do you do with a drummer who has lost his sense of rhythm?

Take away one of his sticks and put him in front of the orchestra.

Q: Why do the natives climb trees at 5pm?
A: To get out of the way of returning elephants.

Q: What's the red stuff between the elephants' toes?
A: Slow natives.

Jacque @201: Oooh, I have one.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Impatient cow. Mooooooo.

Steve C @220:
The Lord Mayor of Glasgow told it at one of the two Glasgow Worldcons; I can't recall which one. So you'll have to make your own decision about stealing it. Those Glaswegians can be a 'ard lot, you know.

-----

A chemist is in his lab late at night and a fire breaks out. He grabs the biggest container he can find, fills it with water, and dumps it over the conflagration. The fire goes out, but his lab notes are ruined. Huge mess.

A physicist is in his lab late at night and a fire breaks out. He takes a few measurements, then gets a 5ml flask and pours a small quantity of water on a couple of spots. The fire goes out with minimal damage.

A mathematician is in his lab late at night and a fire breaks out. He rushes to the bathroom, gets a match, lights it, and dunks it in a cup of water. "Aha!" he declares. "There exists a solution!"

-----

Two actuaries are deer hunting. They both see the same deer at the same moment, and both fire their guns. One shoots 10 feet in front of the poor bewildered beast, while the other's shot goes 10 feet behind it.

The actuaries turn to each other in perfect delight. "We hit it!"

226 ::: Chris Quinones @ 226:

The knighted rabbi joke really cracked me up. That's goinng to get repeated at this year's Seder.

Did you hear about the time the bassist accidentally locked the drummer in his car?

He had to break a window to get him out.

Jacque @201,

A: Dwane the bathtub, I'm dwouning.

This reminds me of, to lurch desperately towards something involving books and stuff, of a time (a long time ago, back when I used to actually know the difference between cross and dot products¹) when it was a habit of mine to read Wilbur Smith books.

One of them², halted the narrative, rather screechingly, during a plane hijack³, to tell (more or less, this isn’t an exact quote, I no longer have the book) the following joke:

“The mighty god Thor once descended from his place of wherever he lived⁴ and had his wicked way with a peasant maiden. Afterwards, Thor thought it would well behoove him to, at the very least, introduce himself. “I’m Thor!” he declaimed. “Tho am I,” replied the maiden, “But it wath a loth of fun.”

I mention this not because I thought it actually funny or anything, but simply that I was rather staggered that someone like Wilbur Smith would switch his readers off for a page while he, basically (it seemed), told one of his favourite jokes (and one which was actually a good deal less funny than pretty much all of those mentioned here...)

Heigh ho.

¹ See above.

² It was either Wild Justice, or one of the others.

³ I think (and hope!)

⁴ I have a sad lack of knowledge when it comes to Norse mythology, which is a shame; particularly when it comes to the headgear the deities may or may not have worn: to hark back to #163, I’d like to say something about “Because Thor’s hat is what I am doing”, but I have no idea if this makes any sort of sense.

PS: Keep forgetting to mention how much I like the Abelian grapes.

In the middle of band practice, a fight breaks out between the bassist and the guitarist.

'What the hell are you doing?' Says the drummer.

'He just detuned one of my strings,' says the bassist.

'Why'd you take a swing at him for that?'

'Because he won't tell me which one.'

#221 ::: Syd
[...]

What's purple and wants to conquer the world?
Alexander the Grape.

But that's only the start!

Where is Alexander the Grape buried?
In Alexander the Grape's tomb.

Who's in Alexander the Grape's tomb?
(and when everyone has guessed Alexander the Grape)

Alexander the Raisin.

Man, there goes another childhood icon:

Fess Parker

Speaking of Norse deities....

It had been a wild night in Vahalla. After a night of drinking and wenching, the God of Thunder rises and seeks a fresh conquest. He spies a likely looking Valkyrie lying in the main hall.

He walks up to her and proclaims, "I'm Thor!"

She looks up, blinks, and says, "You're thor? I'm tho thor I can hardly pith!"

Shoot, that'll teach me to just pass over the posts. I just retold Mark W's joke, albeit differently.

Hi, fansler! (My goodness. Just look at all the lurkers we're luring out of the woodwork!¹) (I also notice Singing Wren posting oh, so casually up there! ;-> )³

Mark_W @218: Good score for a cricketer

And not bad for a bowler.

But srsly, tho' Your posts have a definitely poetical rhythm to them. (Or maybe it's just the Burma-Shave–like rhythm.)

Renatus @225: That's a good one!

(I have a feeling this will be one of those reference threads people will be pointing to for ages to come.)

(Also, has anyone noticed, we've burned through almost a quarter of the thread and are still on jokes? Gotta be the most stable topic of all time.)

¹There's a poem in there, I can tell. I just can't dig it out.^2
2I have to poetry what to music is a tin ear.
³Is there formal syntax for posting a smiley inside of parens?

A letterpress walks into a bar, carrying a chair.

"I don't care if you brought your own furniture, you'll still have to leave," the bartender says. "We don't serve your quoin here."

Chris Quinones @226: I always feel so smart when I deduce² the answer syntactically.¹

Bumper sticker: "Coprolites happened." Took a sec to parse, since I'd never heard the word. Then I 'bout fell off my bike.

abi @233: I first heard that one from Jon Singer, but he adds a first step: The engineer kicks over the trash can and stomps the flames out.

Mark_W @236: Thor's the short, nekkid, gray one.

Abelian grapes. I keep misreading this as "Aldeberan grapes."

¹The handy-dandy translator I have translates your Hebrew as "Ma nishtana halaila hazeh mikol halailot." Ahem.
²It's even better when I'm right!^3
3I'm still liking this joke way too much.
⁴Okay, I'm starting to answer every post. It's definitely time to go home.
⁶There is no Rule 6.
⁵Just so I don't confuse anyone.

A single woman walks into a cocktail bar and asks the bartender for a double entendre.

So he gives her one.

Grishnákh walks into a pub, plants his butt on the bar and demands a drink.

'You'll have to leave,' the bartender says. 'We don't serve orc hind here.'

A Texas-themed version of an old favorite:

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To prove to the armadillo that it could be done.

Why did the armadillo cross the road?
To prove that the chicken was wrong.

Why did the Aggie cross the road?
"Dad-blasted chicken got out again!"

***

Why do mice have small balls?
Because most of them don't know how to dance.

***

A chemical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer engineer got into a car. The car wouldn't start. The chemical engineer said, "I'll bet there's an impurity in the gas." The electrical engineer said, "I think it must be the starter." The computer engineer said, "Let's all get out and lock the doors, then get back in and try again."

***

Mark, #236: A slightly different version of that one:

The thunder god went for a ride
Upon his favorite filly.
"I'm Thor!" he cried. The horse replied,
"You forgot your thaddle, thilly!"

***

Those of you who have played in an orchestra may be aware that there isn't much of a part for the string basses in the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony until the very last section. One night, the bass players in a particular orchestra decided to take advantage of this by sneaking out to the bar for a while, until it was time for them to start playing. They weren't terribly worried about missing their cue, because they'd wrapped some string around the last few pages of the conductor's music, with a little note asking him please not to start that section until they returned.

You can just imagine the conductor's feelings when they came waltzing back in and he realized that... it was the bottom of the Ninth, the basses were loaded, and the score was tied.

Ruth Temple @ 153: The version I learned was:

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.

How do you get four giraffes into a Mini?
You can't, it's already full of elephants.

Why is an elephant large, grey and wrinkled?
Because if it was small, white, and smooth, it would be an aspirin.

Why are there no aspirins in the jungle?
Because the parrots-eat-em-all.
(Note: paracetemol is English for acetaminophen)

Why do elephants paint the soles of their feet yellow?
So they can float upside down in bowls of custard without being noticed.

Why do elephants paint their balls red?
So they can hide in cherry trees without being noticed.

What's the loudest noise in the jungle?
A giraffe eating cherries.

How do you tell if elephants are gatecrashing your party?
By the Mini parked outside.

How do you get them to leave?
Tell them there are four giraffes outside stealing their Mini.

And, changing the subject slightly, a book review about insufficient dinosaurs and sodomy: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-amazon-review-of-christian-romance.html.

Abi@233:

The Lord Mayor of Glasgow told it at one of the two Glasgow Worldcons

Nitpick: Lord Provost.

What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?
Time to get a new fence.

How many lightbulbs does it take to change Soviet Russia?

Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey @122

"I... left... my... ARRRRT
In Sistine FRESCOES...."

This reminds me of my favourite Da Vinci joke¹.

This is by the late, great, Bob Shaw in his 1978 Skycon talk “Up the Conjunction: An Investigation Into Astrology” (collected in Beccon Publication’s 1995 “A Load of Old BoSh”):

Leonardo da Vinci, for example, was way ahead of his time in many ways [...] but not many people know of his connection with early diagnostic medicine...

It came about because he liked working in tempera, which is a type of paint that has egg as one of its constituents. He also like working alfresco – he had some funny habits, old Leonardo – and one, when he was living on a hill outside Florence he covered the entire outside of his house with a magnificent painting which all the townsfolk used to admire. Unfortunately, the land around his house was infested with a kind of insect which was attracted to the egg in the plant and kept climbing up the wall and eating Leonardo’s painting away from the bottom upwards.

He used to counteract this by going out and repainting the picture day by day, but on the days when he wasn’t feeling too good he couldn’t do that, and the picture used to slowly disappear from the bottom. The townsfolk would look up at his house, shake their heads and say, “Leonardo mustn’t be well today – his tempera chewer is rising.”

I still think this is almost certainly the funniest joke in the world, ever...

¹ Rather than my favourite mistelling. There’s a joke that goes as follows:

“Vincent Van Gogh goes into a bar. The bartender says, “Would you like a pint Vincent?” And van Gogh says, “No thank you, I’ve got one ‘ere.”

I once told this joke (at the end of a particularly good night) as follows:

“Leonardo da Vinci goes into a bar. The bartender says, “Would you like a pint, Leonardo?” And Da Vinci says, “No thank you, I’ve already got one...”

Cue tumbleweed and embarrassment (and rightly so, as I’d got the name of the joke’s subject and the punchline wrong).

Clifton 112: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two to hold the giraffe, and seven to fill the bathtub with brightly painted machine tools.

Hmm. I tell that one as "Three: one to hold the giraffe, and one to fill the bathtub with brightly-colored machine parts."

The folk process in action, no doubt.

Q: How many minimalists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One and one and one and one and one and one and one and...

(Witch jokes:)

Q: How many Gardnerians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Can't tell you, that's a 3rd Degree mystery.

Q: How many Alexandrians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: How do the Gardnerians do it?

Q: How many Mycotans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. We just sit in the dark and scream. (If you get this one, you're probably not more than two degrees of separation from me.)

(ObSF:)

Q: How many cyberpunk writers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: All of them. Bill Gibson to do it, and the rest to write manifestos about it.

Want to hear my all time favourite knock-knock joke?

OK, you start...

Renatus @225,

Yes, that's marvellous¹

¹ And no footnotes!²

² Damn!

This seems like a good occasion to lobby for a performance of Teresa's publishing-industry lightbulb jokes.

A couple of them appeared on an earlier thread(comment #2), having escaped captivity and ended up in the Prairie Home Companion joke book, but it sounded as though there were more.

Dave MB at 214, a friend of mine taught her dog to do that. The usual questions were sandpaper, top of a house, and the best baseball player, but she got to the point where anything interrogative got a soft woof. Wonderful dog to have around.

How do you make a French horn sound like a trombone?
Take your hand out of the bell and miss all the notes.

What's [this]? (hand held loosely upside-down)
A dead one of [these]. (hand held more spryly, right side up)

There was a story in Asimov's within the last couple years about a high school band abducted by aliens until they played a perfect concert. Part of it included band jokes. I really liked the story and shared it with my mother the band director.

Alan Braggins @ 249: I don't know if you heard, but a couple WorldCons back a dealer let it be known that they would be selling limited-edition commemorative figurines of some of the better-known Best Fan Writer winners, all designed by Best Fan Artist winners. A friend of mine, terribly fannish, heard about this and (being a bit of a figurine obsessive) seized immediately upon the idea of buying the whole bunch. After arriving in the city, he rushed up to his hotel room to put down his luggage, determined to get to the dealer's room the instant it opened. But as he turned to leave he tripped and knocked his head against the TV stand, out cold. When he awoke, he took one look at the clock--the dealer's room had already opened! He rushed downstairs, clutching his pounding head.

When he got to the table, he slammed his hand on the counter (the other still pressed against his skull), and all but shouted: "Please tell me you have a set of mini-fen!"

a boeing 747 is crossing the states when it heads into a dense cloudbank in wyoming. then its navigation instruments all blank out, and for four hours the pilots fly through impenetrable haze.

suddenly they see a high-rise loom out of the fog, and they circle, seeing an office-worker looking out a window.

the pilot calls to the office-worker: "where are we?"

the office worker looks at his computer-screen intently, looks back out the window, and says, "you're in a plane!"

the pilot immediately begins his descent, and within four minutes has landed the plane safely at sea-tac airport.

"that's incredible!" says the co-pilot, "how did you know where we were?"

"well," says the pilot, "the guy gave me an answer that was vacuously true, and entirely useless. so i figured it had to be the microsoft technical help center."

@261--
...which is probably now in amritsar, but it's an old joke.

So Skinner, Dvorak, a grape, and a mathematical constant walk into a Greek restaurant.

And Skinner's all radical behaviorist and stuff, but the constant's doing him one better, ranting and drinking, I mean, it's practically ouzo with bitterness at that end of the table, and the drunker it gets the more it's rambling on about how fallen humanity is, how worthless people are, how the stain on the soul from the apples of Eden is practically irredeemable; and for a while Skinner seems like maybe he could hold his own, but in the end, he just slams back a drink of his own, exhales hard, and says, "Hoo e, you're a negative one."

"I can't help it," e says defensively. "It's the way I was raised."

There's a pretty long silence. I figure that they are all probably thinkin' about whether there needed to be some kind of complex bakery reference first or something or if it's fine like that; and maybe starting to wonder what exactly's gonna happen with the Czech.

"I had understood," the grape says, stiffly, "that there would be a raisin for me to be in this joke."

And leaves.

Wow. A joke about e getting pie-eyed.

How do you know your stage is level? The drummer is drooling out BOTH sides of his mouth.

—

A young priest went on retreat to a monastery. The monks would go through the morning mass, and after the close, the presider would chant, "Good morning." The monks would chant in reply, "Good morning."

Well, this priest was a bit of a troublemaker, and though he'd join in with the morning chants, he thought about how to be subtly disruptive. And one morning, after the presider chanted, "Good morning," he joined in the reply with "Good evening!"

Then the presider sang, "Someone chanted evening!"

—

On running gags— I worked at a summer camp for four years. One of the things that we did was have a nightly serial skit, based on some popular culture movie of the time. (Such as "Men in Hot Pink and Green.") We also had a Sunday night campfire and a Friday night campfire.

You can see the possibilities. The year we did Men In Hot Pink and Green was also the year we dug up the Monty Python sketch about the Man With the Pointed Stick. (Or maybe it's called How To Attack With Fruit— very popular, especially when we used watermelon.) Anyway, the man with the pointed stick actually had a very small stick, just to make it more surreal when the drill sergeant-instructor ran away in fear.

So around about Thursday, they'd be deep in the serial, and the instructor character would literally run past, screaming, right in the middle of an important scene. The MWaPS would follow and laugh maniacally. Then we'd have disco*.

And on Friday night, the same thing would happen again, except this time, the MWaPS would stop in the middle of his maniacal laugh and run off at the sight of the guy carrying a watermelon.

Many of the attendees had never encountered a running gag before. It's always fun when you can up the ante each time.

*When it comes to summer camp, the thing to remember is that the more ludicrous you make it, the more the campers will get into it. If you try to take yourself at all seriously, teenagers will latch onto it immediately and remember that they're supposed to be Cool™.

These weblog threads are my favorite time waster.

Darn you all! It's like Rip Van Winkle playing ninepins with the elves. When I come back to the real world, time has elapsed.

Okay, it's called Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit. And apparently, no Man With a Pointed Stick actually features in the skit. But hey, we were working from imperfect memory, not Internet— and ours was suitably appropriate.

(We also did a version of the old men sitting around complaining how things were so much tougher in their day— but altered into Boy Scouts cues. My personal favorite? "And what's with this new motto— 'Be Pre-Pared.' Huh. Got nothing on the old one..." (All together) "Watch Your Back!" We'd actually change song lyrics when we'd done that skit...)

eric #39: An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says 'You can't be serious', and pours two beers.

I've been thinking about that one, and there has to be a discrete and indivisible cluster of molecules that make beer what it is. A beeron. So, the infinite number of mathematicians in the joke would end up ordering an infinite amount of beer, but most of them wouldn't be very satisfied at all.

The rabbi is feeling rather lonely around the house, since his wife passed away, so he decides that maybe it'd be nice to have a dog for company. So he goes down to his local pet store, Sam's Discount Pre-Owned Pet Mart, and explains his situation to the owner.

"Rabbi," says Sam, "You're in luck. I have just the dog for you. He's quiet, smart — so smart that he can read and talk — and best of all, he's a good Jew."

The rabbi blinks. "You're putting me on."

"Not at all," says Sam. "Let me show you." And he calls out, "Hey, Irving!"

There's a soft padding sound from the back of the store, and a basset hound slouches out. He has a brown spot on the top of his head that looks kind of like a yarmulke, long floppy ears that look a bit like a prayer shawl, sad droopy eyes — in fact, all in all, he looks remarkably like the rabbi.

The rabbi stares at him. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Not at all," says Sam. "Hey, Irving, how about you do a little reading for the rabbi?"

Irving sighs, and wanders over to a low bookshelf nearby. He carefully paws out a book, picks it up gently with his mouth, and brings it over to the two men. He places it on the floor, opens it with his paw — it's a copy of the Torah. He starts to read — Book of Job. His Hebrew is... passable. Bit of an accent.

"That's incredible," says the rabbi. "Does he also do the normal kinds of doggy things?"

"I don't know," says Sam, flipping his cigar to the other side of his mouth. "I never asked. We can try him and find out." He points to a rubber bone lying on the floor across the room and says, "Irving — fetch!"

Irving looks up at him, and sits down. "All day long, it's 'Irving' this and 'Irving' that. Never a moment's peace. No time for a nice long walk, not that there's any good trees in the neighbourhood. That blanket he gave me to sleep on hasn't been washed in weeks, and it stinks. And as for the glop he gives me to eat —"

"Hold it," says the rabbi. "What is all this? The man told you to fetch the bone."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," says Irving. "I thought he said 'kvetch'."

I have a preference for telling political jokes. Unfortunately, once they're elected you can't tell them anything.

At any rate, the rabbi buys Irving and takes him home. And, of course, shows him off to all his neighbours, who are very impressed. In particular, his next-door neighbour, the Baptist minister, has a bad case of "keeping up with the Cohens", so he decides that he, too, should get a dog. And so he goes down to Sam's Discount Pre-Owned Pet Mart, and talks with the owner.

"Reverend," says Sam, "You're in luck. I have just the dog for you. He's alert, smart — so smart that he can read and talk — and best of all, he's a good Baptist."

The minister blinks. "You're putting me on."

"Not at all," says Sam. "Let me show you." And he calls out, "Hey, Billy!"

There's a scrabbling sound from the back of the store, and a small grey terrier bounces out. He has a bit of a pot belly, a tuft of hair over his eyes that looks kind of like a bad toupee, and he kind of vibrates when he's standing still — in fact, all in all, he looks remarkably like the minister.

The minister stares at him. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Not at all," says Sam. "Hey, Billy, how about you do a little reading for the rabbi?"

The dog gives a bit of a yip, and dashes to the bookshelf. He grabs a book from it in his mouth, slaps it down in front of the men, paws it open — it's a Bible. He then commences a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon about the dangers of allowing cats into society (www.godhatescats.com, check it out).

The minister is very impressed (and he'd always kind of suspected about the cats). He immediately buys Billy, takes him home, and shows him off to his neighbour, the rabbi.

"Well, that's very impressive," says the rabbi. "But does he also do the, you know, usual doggy things?"

"I don't know," says the minister. "I didn't ask. I guess we can try him and find out. Hey, Billy! HEEL!"

The terrier leaps up, shoves him in the chest, and knocks him to the ground. Then the terrier stands on his chest, put his paw on the minister's forehead, looks heavenward, and starts praying loudly.

"Good Lord," says the minister. "He's not Baptist, he's Pentecostal!"

[The Moveable Type system wouldn't let me enter the entire joke in one entry; moderators, there are probably errors logged. But there's a perfect place to split it in two parts.]

Q: What is the alcohol content of an arbitrarily small alcoholic beverage?

A: It's epsilon-delta proof.

WRT 259 and the 'dead one of this':
My college physics teacher told that one as
Q: If this is a centimeter [hand held with fingers down and wiggling], what's this [hand held with fingers up, wiggling sporadically]?
A: A dyin' centimeter.

And a different version of the Polish airliner story.

The Polish airlines were having problems. The pilots would report instability, increasing until the planes went out of control and crashed.
They grounded all the planes for a thorough inspection, and after a couple of weeks were getting nowhere with finding the cause.
A young engineer showed up at the investigation offices, and refused to leave until they listened to him: he was sure he could solve it.
They said 'You're an electrical engineer, you've just graduated from university, and this is clearly an airframe problem!'
But he persisted, and they finally agreed to one flight.
The plane was full, and as it taxied out to the runway, he took over the PA and announced 'All Poles will please move to the left side of the airplane immediately.' Much grumbling, but they all moved.
Perfect takeoff, smooth flight, perfect landing.
The officials rush up to him as he gets off the plane and ask him what he did.
'Simple - everyone knows that Poles in the right half-plane cause instability!'

A duck walks into a drug store, and says, "I'd like to buy a jar of Vaseline."

The clerk says, "will that be cash or charge?"

The duck says, "put it on my bill."

gotta say, both of jenna moran's contributions (263, 272) have been awesomely good.

A duck walks into a Western Union office. He can't fill out the forms himself, so he dictates to the agent, and says that the message is "Quack quack quack quack."

The agent says "You know that it costs the same amount for ten words as for four, right? You could send ten quacks for the same price."

"What," says the duck, you mean send "Quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack?"

"Yes," says the agent.

The duck replies "But that would be stupid!"

Re: #237 and #241, a tamer limerick version memorized from a childhood jokebook:

The Thunder God went for a ride
Upon his favorite filly.
"I'm Thor!" he cried.
The horse replied,
"You forgot your thaddle, thilly."

Argh. I messed up some quotes up there. I'm sure you can figure out what I meant to do.

@279--

i understand, xopher. you were under a lot of pressure, and you quacked.

Caroline @ #139:
"Got any gwapes?" has passed into in-joke status at our house.

Oddly enough, it has at our house too.

"doctor, i'm so anxious! sometimes i feel like a huge circus big-top! other times i feel like a tiny a-frame flapping in an alpine wind-storm!"

"relax! you're just two tents!"

Here's one I used to know, for one reason or another, in Danish once:

What's the difference between a cravat and a volcano?

They both have a driver's license.

I promise it's much funnier in Danish.

Did you hear about that DRM scheme with a 20-letter cryptographic key?

Yeah, the duck got arrested for quacking it.

Q: Why can't programmers tell Christmas from Halloween?
A: Because 25 Dec = 31 Oct.

This one wrote itself.

Q: Why did the troll cross the road?

A: Because for that is what I am doing.

(beloved by my nephew when he was 5)

What's orange and sounds like a parrot?
A carrot!

(bonus light bulb joke)
How many thought police does it take to change a light bulb?
There was never any light bulb.

(bonus aggie joke)
Did you hear about the Aggie who was so proud of his Olympic gold medal he had it bronzed?

Lee, 248: The Beethoven 9 joke is a definite keeper. Brava!

heresiarch, 253: Uhhh, in Soviet Russia, lightbulb change you?

Xopher, 277: I never use LOL, but it's literally true for once.

"Doctor, I can't get Tom Jones' songs out of my head! Is this normal?"

"It's not unusual..."

(Yeah, I've been lurking for a while. I've got some longer jokes, if I can remember how they start... And can someone fill me in on how to handle smileys in parentheses too?)

"i tell you, freya, i'm so sick of dieting. why did fat even have to be created?"

"because, thor, fat is wotan's doing."

What's the difference between an elephant and an egg?

If you don't know, I'd better not send you out to buy eggs.

B Durbin at 265, appropriately enough, one of the traditions at Alpha is that, when critting, 'ditto' becomes 'kumquat'. Some Alphans have trouble adjusting back for other crit groups. I can't think of any other workshop traditions that are anything like a skit or fruit-related, though.

Speaking of Alpha and running gags (of a sort), the 2009 group made a very short zombie book and are using it as a scholarship fundraiser. Ned and Jane is what they've done with it.

Two muffins were sitting in the oven. "Boy, it sure is hot in here," one muffin said. The second muffin turned and said, "OH MY GOD A TALKING MUFFIN!"

My sister once went on for half an hour asking, "You wanna hear a joke?" and telling a variation on that. I'm amazed that anyone said yes after the first few.

*ahem* (Imagine an extremely Minnesota/Northern Wisconsin accent. I can't do it very well, being originally from Iowa, but I'm learning.)

So it's winter where Olie and Lena live, and the alternate-side parking rules are on. (You all know these, right? Park on one side of the street one night and the other side the next night so the snow plow can go by.) And every night Lena says to Olie, "Don't forget to go move the car," and Olie says, "Yes, dear," and goes out to move the car to the other side of the street.

This goes on for a couple of months -- "Don't forget to move the car," "Yes, dear," every day, back and forth, until one night Olie looks up and says, "You know, Lena, why don't we just park it in the garage?"

Chris, #288: I can't take credit for it; I'm pretty sure I found it in a little collection called Musical Gems from the Reader's Digest. *goes to check* No, I'm wrong, it's not in there -- which means it was probably in one of their joke sections during the period when I was a subscriber.

@5 DonBoy
Why did Douglas Hofstadter cross the road?
To make this joke possible.

@95 shadowsong
(First, ask me who's the world's greatest Polish comedian, then ask me to what I attribute my success.)
OK, who's the world's greatest Polish comedian?
Why, I am.
And to what do you attr--
Timing!

I still remember the elephant jokes.
I have musician jokes for just about the entire orchestra . . .

How many clarinetists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Just one, but he needs a whole case of bulbs to find one that's just right.

Why don't cellists get hemorrhoids?
Because all the assholes are in the violin section.

What's a tuba for?
Actually, it's more like one and a half by three and a half unless you specify full cut.

And since no one's gotten there yet:
How can you tell if you've had Deadheads visiting your place?
They're still there.

What did the Deadhead say when he ran out of drugs?
This band sucks!

@177 Mary Aileen
How do you make orca sushi?
Tie a sack of rice on your back and swim out in Puget Sound.

As for the ethnic jokes, IRL I've felt the Irish jokes were different since I found out the Irish tell them about the other counties.
There was this Irishman who'd done very well for himself in life. In his will, he left his estate for the provision of the mentally less able. So they built a home in Kerry, and they built a home in Cork, and they put a roof over Dublin.

(The I.R.A. jokes translate well into P.L.O. jokes, too.)

@196 Cadbury Moose
Marxists anarchists

@236 abi
And they were really in a bind for time, because it looked like rain and they wanted to get the top up.

@248 Lee
How much do four elephant balls weigh?
I don't know, but it takes two elephants to carry them.

@270 Fragano
"I don't make up political jokes. I just vote for them like everybody else." —- Will Rogers

After the magi visited the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, St. Thomas Aquinus (the Dominican), St. Anthony of Padua (the Franciscan), and St. Ignatius of Loyola (the Jesuit) pay a visit to the Holy Family.

St. Thomas presents the Virgin with a copy of his Summa Theologica. St. Anthony then presents the Virgin with a copy of St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun.

While St. Thomas and St. Anthony are making their presentations, St. Ignatius approaches St. Joseph and asks, "So, have you thought about where you're going to send Him to school?"

An American, a Pole, an Israeli and a Russian were waiting at a bus stop.
A pollster happened by, and he asked them, "Do you think there can be too much butter?"
The Russian said, What's “butter”?
The American said, What's “too much”?
The Pole said, What's “think”?
The Israeli said, What's “excuse me”?

My boyfriend submits:
Why did Cauchy get mad at his dog whenever they went for a walk?
Because it left a residue at every pole.

What does a mathematician do when he gets constipation?

He works it out with a pencil.

I heard this one a long time ago:

Radi was a circus lion
Radi was a woman-hater
Radi had a lady trainer--
Radiator

jenevira @ 293

If they'd adopt such a scheme here, you'd get iced into your driveway.... They seldom plow my road because it's a 1-block spur off of one major street into our neighborhood, but when they do, my hubby has to dig out the end of the drive so the two of us who DO park in there can get out. And then he digs out his car because it's on the street and has a mound beside it.

We have a one-car-ass driveway between the porch and the neighbor's privacy fence. It can be annoying in winter.

ERik @ #299, eeuw

A guy walks into a bar with a doberman and a tuba. He says "This is my buddy Ian. He's on a special diet. Could you make him up a big bowl of lard, olive oil, butter, and bacon drippings?" The barkeep says "Ew, gross -- why?" The man says "Because Four Fat is what Ian's doing."

But Janet? What about the doberman?

Re the impatient cow knock-knock joke referenced twice already - when that was going around once, I came up with a good variant that only worked contextually:

A: Knock knock!
B: Who's th-
A: Moo!

Cracked everybody up - once. My kids love it, though.

Here's a German joke I was told, in German, by a real German (after choir practice with the Stuttgarter Oratorienchor, we'd go out for late supper/drinks/extended joke runs, with additional dialect coaching for the only non-Swabian in the group, which would be me):

A Daimler driver (in Stuttgart, all car jokes are about Daimler and/or BMW (stands for Bau Mal Wieder))...

So a Daimler driver is pulled up at the red light, when a Fiat Mini pulls up next to him. Being a Daimler driver, he calls over to the Mini driver, "Hey, nice car, man, you get that in a box of Cracker Jacks?" The Mini driver shrugs, and says, "Sure, but your car probably doesn't even have a bed in it." [Translator's note: the original didn't mention Cracker Jacks.]

The Daimler man says, "Pfft, that's crazy, you can't get a bed into a Fiat Mini!" The Mini driver shrugs again, and pushes a button on his dashboard, and the seats fold down into a bed, and the Daimler driver just boggles.

So the next day, he goes to the Daimler dealership, and pays an arm and a leg to have a bed put into his Daimler, and soon after that, as he's driving along, he sees the Fiat Mini off on the side of the road, with all the windows steamed up.

Well, he can't wait to show off, so he gets out of his car and goes and knocks on the window, and knocks, and knocks again, and finally the Fiat driver rolls down the window and says, "What?"

The Daimler driver says, "Ha! Now I have a bed in my car, too!"

And the Mini driver just shrugs and says, "You got me out of the shower to tell me that?"

I'm embarrassed to say that the twenty-odd years of intervening time meant that I had to Google the punchline to reconstruct this joke. But it does go to show you that the stereotype of the humorless German is based on ... damn if I know. I laughed a lot there.

I like interrupting cow jokes.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting sloth.
Interrupting sloth who?
[very slow reaching out and shoving gently]

There's another one in the set, but I don't remember it.

I am not brave enough to do this one:
Knock knock.
Who's there?
John the Baptist [throw contents of water glass in face]

[delurk]

Why is 6 afraid of 7?
Because 7 8 9.

What did the zero say to the 8?
"Nice belt!"

And while I'm telling jokes I either learned in elementary school, or should have:

What's grey, has a trunk, and is full of cement?

.

.

.

.

An elephant. I put the cement in to make it harder.

Diatryma @ 306 - Wow! I'm going to tell that to my son tomorrow - he'll love it!

This isn't a joke, but it should be.

Father S. was rather infamous at our college. He ran the Honors program at the time my brother was admitted* and completely fulfilled the stereotype of the hard-line Jesuit who could get you in a verbal knot very quickly. Interviews for the Honors program usually started somewhere around "Are you familiar with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?" and usually involved, at some point, a statement such as "So you're saying you're racist."

These interviews were, of necessity, done over the phone. My brother came out shaking from his. Evil Rob can still describe his interview to this day, over a decade later.

So anyway, my campus occasionally got those you're-all-going-to-Hell-you-sinful-college-students types, unless it was you're-all-going-to-Hell-you-Catholic-follwers-of-the-whore-of-Babylon. And one of them decided to harangue Father S. as he walked to his office, in full priest collar and all. "God says this." "God says that."

Father S. patiently bore this until he got to the porch of the Honors house. Then he went down on his knees and prayed for a minute, looked up calmly, and said, "God says you're wrong."

*I thankfully did not have to deal with the formidable Father S. Instead, I had Father K., whose office hours were a suggestion and who was really into mystical stuff.

Oh, and who has seen Dogma? Evil Rob and I were in hysterics over the scene where the protagonist dips the golf club in the sink full of water to make holy water, because the priest was the sort to bless his golf clubs. That's Father K.

How do you tell the difference between a universalist and a computer scientist?

Because, when you tell them "Go to hell", the computer scientist is offended by the "go to".¹

-----

Two Dominican friars are out begging for their monastery. They ask a miser if he'll give them money to buy food.

"What if I don't give you anything?" he asks.

The older friar says, "We'll call it a fast day."

"Well, how do I know that if I give you money you won't just spend it on books?"

The younger friar says, "Oh, but we've already got book money!"

-----

¹ - Also, the computer scientist uses logical quotes when telling this joke in writing.²

² - But someone who uses logical quotes in written jokes isn't necessarily a computer scientist.

I sent a friend a link to this thread, and he sent me a link to this jokes thread at Math Overflow. A lot of them are over my head, but the ones I get are hilarious.

why is the url of this thread out of order? it looks like someone set it up before even the previous open thread - this is 012199.html, open thread 136 is 012210. could teresa not get the joke out of her head until she wrote it down?

For mathematicians, musicians and fabric folk

d seamstress/d contralto ?

A seamstress tucks up frills.

Why do Unitarian Universalists come in late when they sing hymns?
A: Making sure they agree with the lyrics before they say them.

How do you stop a Baptist from drinking all your beer on a fishing trip?
A: Invite two Baptists.

What has four wheels, flies, and is full of rocks?
A: A four-wheeled, flying rock box.

A wizard walks into a bar and sits down. After a moment, the bartender notices a cloud of smoke coming out of the wizard's satchel. Bartender says, "Sir, this is a non-smoking establishment." Wizard says, "I'm not smoking. He is." And the wizard opens the satchel, and the bartender sees a halfling in there, smoking on a pipe. Wizard says, "Can you give the bloke a break? We've been fleeing from orcs for days." Bartender says, "Sir, this is a non-smoking establishment. I'm going to have to ask you to take your filthy little hobbit outside."

(semi-lurker)

My favorite collection of math and mathematician jokes is disguised as a folklore paper.

Via Gino Robair:

A drummer goes for an audition. The band leader says, "Can you play a samba pattern with your bass drum?" The drummer obliges.

The leader then asks "can you add a Mozambique cowbell pattern along with that with your right hand?" The drummer thinks "I can do that, no problem" and does so, giving it his best Steve Gadd imitation.

He is then told: "now add a 2-3 clavé with your left foot on hi-hat." The drummer's struggling a little, but gets it happening.

Next he hears: "now add a cascara pattern on the snare with your left hand." Years of studying Gary Chester and listening to world music finally come to fruition, and the relieved drummer finds he can play the whole pattern with no problem.

Pleased with himself, he asks the band leader: "So, do I get the job?

"No," says the band leader. "That's why we fired the last guy!"

PJ Evans @273 -- that would be an erg. (a dyne-centimeter)

Neil in Chicago -- I've been waiting to hear someone tell my orca sushi joke other than myself! Now I know someone thought it was funny enough to repeat.

A tortoise walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Have you seen my dad?"

A cat walks into a saloon in the Old West. He's a tough-looking hombre, grizzled, scarred, and walks with a noticeable limp. Silence falls as he limps up the the bar - no sound anywhere in the saloon except for the jingle of his gunbelt.

He turns to survey the drinkers, twitches his whiskers, and says,

"Ah'm lookin' fer the varmint who shot mah Paw."

B. Durbin @ #265:

Knock, knock.
- Who's there?
Sam and Janet.
- Sam and Janet who?
(sings) Sam and Janet Evening.

----

A man enters a monastery where the rule is that novices are under a vow of silence for their first five years, except once a year when each novice is allowed to speak one sentence to the abbot.

At the end of the first year, the man goes to the abbot and says, "Father Abbot, my roommate snores like a rusty chainsaw, and I've had no sleep all year."

The abbot promises to look into the room assignments.

At the end of the second year, the man goes to the abbot and says, "Father Abbot, the room you moved me to has an enormous crack in the ceiling, where the wind gets in all winter and the floor is covered in water when it rains."

The abbot promises to have it repaired.

At the end of the third year, the man goes to the abbot and says, "Father Abbot, I'm leaving the monastery. It just isn't working out for me."

The abbot says, "It's probably for the best. You've done nothing but complain the entire time you've been here."

Most of the elephant jokes I know have been told already, but there's still these:

Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants walking past?
A: "Hello, elephants!"

Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants walking past, wearing dark glasses?
A: Nothing. He didn't recognise them.

Q: Why were the elephants wearing dark glasses?
A: Would you want to be recognised if people told so many daft jokes about you?

[German, and other, national stereotypes]

----

A tour group in the south of England takes a somewhat relaxed attitude to the official timetable, frequently stopping a bit longer anywhere the tourists particularly like. All the tourists are suitably grateful, except the German, who becomes increasingly irritated as the morning wears on and the tour slips further and further behind schedule.

By lunchtime, they're over an hour behind, and the German tourist is about ready to pop.

"And this is Runnymeade," the guide says, "where the Magna Carta was signed."

"When did that happen?" one of the tourists asks.

"1215."

"Bah!" says the German. "If you ran your tour more efficiently, we would not have missed it!"

----

An Englishman on holiday in Ireland is seduced by the beautiful countryside and friendly people, and decides to emigrate. It's explained to him that if he does, he is required to have a third of his brain surgically removed, so that he will fit in, but after some soul-searching he decides to proceed.

The man wakes after the operation to find a group of people gathered around his bed, looking nervous.

"We're really very sorry," one says, "but the surgeon's hand slipped during the operation, and instead of removing a third of your brain, he removed two thirds."

"No worries," says the man. "She'll be right."

A German couple have a son - their first - and they're delighted, of course, but they grow increasingly worried when he doesn't seem to start talking. Not even baby talk. The doctors say there's nothing physically wrong with him - they're baffled. By the age of five, his parents have given up, when one evening at dinner he suddenly says "Not enough salt!"

"Heinrich, you can talk!" they cry, delighted. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"Up until now," the boy replies, "everything has been satisfactory."

Q: How many roadies does it take to change a light bulb?

A: One. One two... one two... one one one.

My favorite multilingual/accent joke:

A gentleman from Aberdeen is travelling in France with his family of seven when the entire party is caught in a sudden, violent rainstorm. They are thoroughly soaked by the time they duck into a nearby restaurant.

The maître d' approaches them and says, "Huit?"

"Aye," replies the Scotsman, "but we'll dry."

#248 - A chemical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer engineer got into a car. The car wouldn't start. The chemical engineer said, "I'll bet there's an impurity in the gas." The electrical engineer said, "I think it must be the starter." The computer engineer said, "Let's all get out and lock the doors, then get back in and try again."

I heard this one with a Micros+ft employee instead of the computer engineer. The MS person suggests closing all the windows to see if the car will start again.

Y'know, when I started this thread, I wasn't sure if I was taking it in the right direction, but I'm really glad I took the risk and put myself out there.

[That can be a delicately-crafted satire on anyone you care to think about that's a big-headed asshole, if you want to stay on topic...]

French joke about Belgians which I read in the Irish Times (make of that what you will):

A Belgian family plan a motoring holiday in Britain, but their youngest is inclined to be seasick, so instead of sailing from Zeebrugge - this is before they build the channel tunnel - they decide to use the shortest crossing from Calais. So they all pile into the car, and they drive and they drive and they drive, until eventually they see a big road sign saying, 'Pas de Calais'.

So they shrug their shoulders and go home.

B. Durbin @267: [running gags at camp]¹ Sounds like entirely too much fun.

no Man With a Pointed Stick actually features in the skit

I'll wager that there is to comedy skits that which is as riffing is to jazz. I wonder if it has a name?

Allan Beatty @286: FTW!!

Q: Why did the punk-rocker cross the road?
A: 'Cause he was stapled to a chicken.

Q: Why did the Christian cross himself?
A: To get to the other side.

Janet Croft @303: Wow. I'm...impressed. (I wonder if poor John Clarke had any clue what he was getting himself into....)

Pendrift² @233: Oh my goodness. Interrupting cow jokes. A whole sub-genre of knock knock jokes of which I was entirely unaware...

LT, hi hi!!

alex @327: It's fortunate you didn't start with the other end of the horse.

¹Not to be confused with running dogs of capitalism.
²Oh, so that's what you look like! Who's the human?

Tome at 318
'Erg' is the reaction on that one, so to speak. (I was hoping someone would pick that one up.)

Jamaican jokes tend to be about a picaresque character called "Big Boy."

One day Big Boy arrived at school late. The teacher asked him "Big Boy, why are you tardy?" "Mi mumma, sick, teacha," he replied. "Oh, dear, what's wrong with her?" the teacher asked. "Well, mi nu rightly know," said Big Boy, "but las' night, when mi unda bed, mi hear mi puppa seh dat is long time she nuh get she medicine."

322: Old man in pub: "I haven't had a drink since 1955! ...of course, it's only 2130 now."

Janet Croft's #303: omigod, Making Light meta-humor. dies

So anyway, a Jesuit and a Franciscan are walking through a garden, silently praying, when the Jesuit pulls out and lights up a big cigar.

The Franciscan murmurs, "My spiritual director says one should not smoke while one prays."

The Jesuit answers, "Mine said it's all right if I pray while I smoke."

What's purple and commutes underwater?

An Abelian subgrape.

[Another lurker crawls back into the shadows.]

Jacque @ 329 "I'll wager that there is to comedy skits that which is as riffing is to jazz. I wonder if it has a name?"

Squiffing?

Reminded by Jenna at 272 --

How can you pick out all the mathematicians at a mixed faculty party?

Wait for a lull in the conversation, say, "Let epsilon be less than zero," and look to see who flinches.

Madeley #335, Jacque #329: That would be "improv".

Enjoying this thread, though I'm pretty busy with the Book Festival.

I was waiting for someone to say "But what's the tuba for?" so I could refer them back to Neil @295...but Xopher's response was funnier.

I once met a man with a wooden leg named Sam.
What was the name of his other leg?

You need to imagine hearing this one in a pronounced Texas twang (somewhere in the Lady Bird Johnson range, if anyone here still remembers her):

"How is a lemon pie like the third finger of my left hand?"

"Because it has meringue on it."

@303--

very nice, janet! my 290 was an attempt at the same thing, but didn't work.
(it's all trial and error, joke-writing.)

A physicist, a biologist, and an engineer go duck hunting. A duck takes flight and the first two take aim...

The physicist quickly calculates distance, velocity of the duck, velocity of the bullet, air resistance... BLAM! Off two feet to the left.

The biologist quickly makes a prediction about the duck's flight path based on the duck's size, the time of day, the season, the direction of the wind -- BLAM! Off two feet to the right.

The engineer starts jumping up and down excitedly. "We got him, we got him!"

-------------------

Well, finally our Great Hunters manage to bag themselves a duck. They bring it back to camp, triumphant. "We got a duck!" they shout.

Their friend who stayed behind at the camp, a philosopher, raises an eyebrow. "How do you know it's a duck?"

The physicist is taken aback and doesn't quite know what to say. "Well, it's got feathers, a bill, webbed feet... I dunno, it's a duck!"

The biologist is also pretty rattled. "Well, I guess we could get a sample of its DNA and compare it to other ducks..."

The engineer shrugs and says, "We went hunting for duck. Therefore, it's a duck."

Open-Thready footnote request:

The Great Ghod Ghugle ( * ) hath failed me. I can find no references to abelian grapes (I know there's a pun involved, but even my former-math-major husband can't get it specific) or "Because for that is what we are doing" that don't trace back to ML.

What's the grape really meant to be, and what is the origin of that phrase? I mean, I can appreciate it now on the level of ML-in-joke, but it's [voice funny="Pirate in a bar"]It's drivin' me noots![/voice] not knowing its origins ...

* Holy symbol, not footnote glyph

My favorite multilingual/accent joke: A gentleman from Aberdeen is travelling in France

A gentleman from Scotland is travelling in Canada, and catches sight of an enormous brown animal moving through the trees. He turns to his travelling companion and asks what it is.

"That's a moose."

"A moose? Jings! What must the cats be like?!"

Actually, though, my favourite multilingual joke is the one about the Yiddish word for disappointment.

I'm not going to attempt it here; it's marvellous when told properly, but I've seen it completely screwed up more often than I've seen it told competently, and as a goy who speaks no Yiddish beyond the interjections one picks up from television I'm not confident I'll contribute to the better side of the ratio.

If you don't know the joke, I commend to you Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor, which has a good rendition. Come to think of it, I recommend Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor in any case.

Debra Doyle @ #339:

A man walks into a costume party with a woman on his back. The host looks him over, fails to draw any conclusions from his apparent lack of costume, and asks what he's come as.

"I'm a snail."

"A... snail? With a woman on your back?"

"That's Michelle."

Elliot @ 342: Try this.

@342--

look for abelian *groups*--abel was a famous pioneer of group theory.

the catch-phrase was coined by an australian troll, "john clarke", on the "rowling sued for plagiarism" thread:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012205.html#401763

Elliott : Apollogys fro teh mispelling off you're naem.

I can find no references to... "Because for that is what we are doing" that don't trace back to ML.

That's because the phrase is original to ML, specifically the memorably odd comment here:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012205.html#401763.

Q: What's small, green and eats stones?
A: The little green stone eater.

Q: What do you call a bull, working in a bovine medical research facility?
A: A cow-laborator

Q: If you dig a hole straight through the whole Earth and throw a small stone down the hole, how long before it pops out on the other end?
A: It won't. It'll fall three meters, then the little green stone eater eats it.

The last and first should, ideally, be told with a couple of hours of waiting between them.

Then, of course, there are the nonsense jokes.

Two moose were sitting up a pine, having a wee chat. Suddenly, a submarine comes flying and lands in the birch next to them. The mooses stop talking for a few seconds, until one of them says "He probably lives there".

After getting all of the Pope's luggage loaded into the limo (lots of trunks and very large hatboxes), the limo driver notices that Benedict is still standing on the curb.

"Excuse me, Your Eminence," says the driver, "but would you please take your seat so we may leave?" "Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "ever since I became Pope, they never let me drive, and I'd really like to do the driving today."

"I can't let you do that!" says the driver. "I'd lose my job! What if something should happen?" "Well, says Benedict, "there might be something extra in it for you."

Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back. Benedict climbs in behind the wheel and floors the acceleration, quickly reaching 105 mph. "Please slow down, Your Holiness!" cries the driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens. "Oh, dear God, I'm gonna lose my license," the limo driver moans.

The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window. The cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on his radio.

"I need to talk to the Chief," he says to the dispatcher. The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five. "So bust him!" says the Chief.

"I don't think we want to do that; he's really important," says the cop. "All the more reason!" replies the Chief.

"No, I mean really important." says the cop.

The Chief then asks, "Who ya got there, the Mayor?"

Cop: "Bigger."

Chief: "Governor?"

Cop: "Bigger."

"Well," says the Chief, "then who is it?"

Cop: "I think it's God."

Chief: "Now what makes you think that?"

Cop: "Well, he's got the Pope for a limo driver."

The last and first should, ideally, be told with a couple of hours of waiting between them.

If you have a partner, you can tell one of my favorite jokes ever.

First, one of you tells a joke. The content is completely immaterial except that it be extremely lame and the "punchline" involve someone throwing a brick into the air and it not coming down.

Wait a few hours (or at least a few intervening jokes from others) for the pain to fade.

Then, the other partner tells a joke about two people on an airplane. One's a little old lady with a yappy dog, and the other is a large man with an obnoxious cigar. They get into a quarrel about their respective sources of annoyance, and the lady grabs the man's cigar and pitches it out the airplane window*. The man, in retaliation, throws the dog out after, but the lady was canny and kept hold of Fido's leash. She reels the dog back in, and what does it have in its mouth?

The brick.

The great part is that the person who told the original lame joke gets all sorts of adulation once the true punchline is revealed.

* We are obviously ignoring aerodynamics, the actual construction of airplanes, and regulations regarding smoking and pets.

#338
I was wondering what the Doberman was doing there.
[ducks and runs]

A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit were out playing golf one day. They were moving from hole to hole at a good clip until they got stuck behind a group of golfers who were taking their time and not letting anyone else play through. Feeling irritated, the three priests went to the club manager to complain.

"Oh, that party," said the manager. "They're blind. It takes them more time. Please be patient."

The Franciscan was mortified. He got down on his knees and begged God’s forgiveness for his anger.

The Dominican was also chagrined. He repented of his impatience, and vowed to do more to help the poor and infirm.

The Jesuit was less impressed. He said, "Why don’t you just make them play at night?"

There was an old woman from Crewe
This limerick ends at line two.

So a guy goes to a Franciscan and asks him to say a novena so that he can win a Lexus in a lottery.

"What’s a Lexus?"

"It’s a luxury car."

"Oh dear, St. Francis would never approve of violating poverty, so I couldn't possibly pray for a thing like that."

So the guy goes to a Dominican. "Would you please say a novena so that I can win a Lexus?"

"What’s a Lexus?"

"You know, the luxury car."

"Oh dear, St. Thomas Aquinas sternly warns against love of worldly goods. I couldn’t possibly pray for that."

Finally in desperation he asks a Jesuit. "Please, Father, would you say a novena so that I can win a Lexus?"

"What’s a novena?"

David @355:

There once was a man from Verdun.

There was a young man from Verdun.

Sorry, David.

There was a calf.

Abi, you got me!

Not at all - I should have had the confidence to leave a gap. Demonstrably, the secret of

David @360:

Yeah, but I never heard that last one. That's gold.

Q. Why can't Anglicans play chess?

A. Because they can't tell a bishop from a queen.

TIMING!

There once was a man from Verdun.

A part of me is always surprised to encounter Verdun in history and geography. Don't they know it's a made-up place for limericks? Or at least that one?

A priest called in sick one beautiful Sunday morning and went golfing by himself. Saint Peter, understandably a bit miffed, called God over to see.
God pointed at the priest, who made a hole in one.
Saint Peter looked concerned.
God pointed again, and another hole in one.
"Um, sir?"
The priest made a really lousy shot, but God flicked his fingers at it and a gust of wind came up and lo, a third hole in one.
"What are you doing? I expected a little light smiting, and you're giving him the best game of his life?"
God smiled. "Yeah, but who's he gonna tell about it?"

#362 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: March 19, 2010, 11:07 AM:

David @360:

Yeah, but I never heard that last one. That's gold.

Ought'ta

Well, drat.

Clearly, God decided a little light smiting was in order for my pride in typing up the joke.

I can't believe no one's brought this one out yet:

A priest, a minister and a rabbi are going fishing, with a cooler of beers in the boat and more back in the car. Partway through the afternoon, the cooler runs out, and the rabbi offers to row the boat back to shore to get some more.

"No," says the priest, "That's OK. I'll just walk over." And he stands up, steps out of the boat, and walks back to shore. The rabbi is still staring when he comes back with another round of beers.

A little later, the beers run out again. Again, the rabbi offers to row back and get them. "No, don't worry about it," says the minister. "I can walk it." And he gets up and walks back to the shore, gets the beers, and comes back across the water.

Toward the end of the day, the beers are done again. "Hey, I'll row us back to get more," says the minister.

"Oh, no," says the rabbi. "If you can do it, I can do it. I'm walking." He stands up, steps out of the boat, and sinks like a stone.

The priest turns to the minister and says, "Do you think we should have told him where the rocks are?"

Jacque@205: seating error! (As in, board not seated correctly in connector).

And how long it takes him to fix it depends on how many flat spares he's brought with him.

There was a yound man of Verdun
Whose tale always ended--line one.
But no-one could tell
How the verse-form would gel,
Or just how the last line should run.

Okay, if we're really hauling out the ancient chestnuts...

A priest and a rabbi are sitting next to each other on an plane. After a while the priest turns to the rabbi and asks, "Check me on something. Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?"

"Yes, that's still one of our beliefs," the rabbi says.

The priest then asks, "Have you ever eaten pork?"

"Yes," says the rabbi. "On one occasion I succumbed to temptation and tasted a ham sandwich."

The priest nodded understandingly and went on with his reading. A while later, the rabbi asked the priest, "Father, is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?"

The priest replied, "Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith."

"So, Father," said the rabbi, "have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?"

The priest sighed. "Yes, rabbi," he said. "On one occasion I was weak, and I slept with a woman."

The rabbi nodded understandingly. He was silent for about five minutes. Then he said:

"Beats the hell out of a ham sandwich, doesn't it?"

My favorite dialect joke, in a broad Scots accent:

Aye, d'ye ken the difference between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney?

Bing sings, and Walt disnae.

#372, Tom Whitmore: Richard Thompson tells that one!

Mine @ 128 got tangled up in the interwebs. Here is the joke again.
- Was machen die Hamburger wenn es regnet?
- Sie machen die Schirme auf.
(- What do they do in Hamburg when it rains?
- They put their umbrellas up.)

There might be a pun on machen = to do and aufmachen = to put up, but then the joke would be better as
- Was machen die Hamburger wenn es regnet?
- Die Schirme auf.
Otherwise it's on a par with
- Where was Noah when the lights went out?
- In the dark,
where there is a hint of a pun on dark and Ark. Or maybe there isn't.

368
Oh, ghu, I'd forgotten that one.
(I heard it many years ago, from a Methodist minister. He was the one who introduced us to 'Ladle Rat Rotten Hut', also.)

Q: It's red and green and eats grass
A: A red-green grass eater
Q: it's black and white and eats grass
A: A cow

It's red and lives in trees? A nest of fire engines.

One of the partners at a big law firm in Alaska had friend from Praque to go moose hunting. Unfortunately, they ran into a bear family and papa bear killed and ate his friend. Running away in a panic the lawyer comes across two forest rangers, one of which shoots the female bear.

Why? Never trust a lawyer when he says the Czech's in the male.

Patrick @373 -- I wonder if we both got it from Heather?

1. Elliot Mason@342:

Abelian group: group theory is the simplest branch of abstract algebra, and one of the basic divisions is between Abelian groups (named for Abel), where the order of operations doesn't matter (they 'commute'), and non-Abelian groups, where order does matter. My problem when I first heard the joke was different: I don't think of grapes as purple.

2. Abi@325:
The best real-life version I've heard of was a report in some English newspaper quoting a Scottish peer as saying "The problem with devolution is in Ayrshire." This seemed a very uncharacteristic way for the gentleman in question to apportion responsibility. It turned out on further investigation that he was actually blaming the general tendency for stationary things to remain stationary.

3. Meta-limerick, funny only if you know limericks (I got this one from a Daniel Dennett book)

There was a young lady named Tuck
Who had the most terrible luck
She went out in a punt
And fell over the front
And was bit in the leg by a duck

In comment #349 ajay writes:

(About the catchphrase "Because for that is what we are doing")

That's because the phrase is original to ML, specifically the memorably odd comment here

Rereading that linked comment by John Clarke
I seem to hear him channeling the Bard:

You knew 'twas me, Renatus, for you've been
Digging out people's IP addresses.
You naughty middle-aged confused servant
Of the Ruthless Rowling, you. I hope
Your masters pay you well, and I, of course
Had no idea that you had mental health
Issues, as you so honestly expound
At length on this, another comment thread.

Or I would not have so remarked upon
All that EVIL stuff. Brr! Terribly
Old fashioned word that, now as out of place
as grammar in Finnegan's Wake by Joyce,
Or Honesty inside the soul of Chris
Topher Little or any of the hacks
Who work for him, including Ms. Rowling.

As for the others who may have had the
Misfortune to visit this site and be
tempted to comment... you are but a lamb,
dear reader, ... in a lake of sharks. All those
strange phrases, idiot arguments,
pseudo-analyses that can turn an
elephant's leg into a tree trunk at
will and all repeated elsewhere on the net
with diffrent names appended.

Leave, leave now! Never to return!
Because for that is what I'm doing.

A guy goes into a bar and sits down next to an Evangelical. On the television, the news shows a distraught man standing on a building ledge.

Guy: "See that man on the ledge?"

Evangelical: "Yes."

Guy: "He's going to jump."

Evangelical: "No, he's not. Pray with me."

Guy: "Okay, but let's bet on it, just to keep things interesting. Here's a twenty."

Evangelical: "You're on. Jesus will save him. Now let's pray."

They pray.

The guy on the ledge jumps.

Evangelical: "Well, that's that." (Pushes the two twenties down the bar.)

Guy: "Aw, I can't take your money. Truth is, I saw that footage during their last broadcast."

Evangelical: "That's okay, I saw it too. I just thought we could save him this time."

I can now report the the elephants in a Mini/elephants in the fridge sequence of jokes is a big hit with third-graders, but the first-graders didn't get it; however, the first-graders really like the interrupting sloth.

In other news, have a Vulcan knock-knock joke:

Knock knock!
Enter.

Parrot jokes:

A man has a parrot that swears up a blue streak, and he's getting tired of it. He's tried everything from cayenne pepper to pleas to shouting, but the bird simply will not stop with the foul* language.

So he gets so angry he seizes it and pops it in the freezer. He quickly repents and opens it again.

"I would like to sincerely apologize for my previous behavior," says the parrot in a moderate tone of voice. "It was ill-mannered of me to use such intemperate language, and I sincerely regret having done so. Furthermore, I should have ceased to do so when you requested it of me, rather than forcing you to such extreme measures to extract from me that degree of obedience that a human naturally expects from a pet whom he feeds and cares for with such care. I would like to assure you that the problem will never recur."

"Right," says the man, a little dazed. "That's OK, then."

"If I might be permitted to ask a question," ventures the parrot after a brief pause, "what did the chicken do?"

AND...

There once was a Baptist minister whose parrot had the unfortunate habit of shouting FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! all the time. Particularly when there were visitors in the house. It really was most vexing.

He heard at length of another minister whose parrot said nothing but, "Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray."

In the hopes that his bird could learn some manners, the minister brought his foul*-mouthed† pet over. They put the two birds on a perch together.

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" declaimed the first parrot.

"You're just what I've been praying for," responded the second.

-----
* this is the glyph of causing you to stop and listen for the pun I didn't make
† beaked?

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Interrupting Kanye.

Interrupting Kany-

"Now, that's a good joke, and Imma let you finish, but Interrupting Cow is the greatest knock-knock joke of all time. OF ALL TIME!"

Man walks into a bar, accompanied by a giraffe. He orders a beer, gets the giraffe to drink it. He does this over and over again, until the giraffe's so half-cut it can't stand, so it keels over. Man shrugs, and turns to leave.

'Hey!' Says the bartender. 'You can't leave that lyin' there!'

The man rolls his eyes and says:

'It's not a lion, it's a giraffe.'

Carrie@352: The yellow brick! Hooray!

ajay #349: "I can find no references to... 'Because for that is what we are doing' that don't trace back to ML." That's because the phrase is original to ML, specifically the memorably odd comment here.

Hmmm, I thought it was just some kind of willfully obscure Torah reference.

Rikibeth at 383 -
(Interrupting Kanye)

Ow. I am ded with teh funny.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Hastur?
Hastur Who?
Hastur be three times that name's, been... said... in...
(Numerous Byakhee come and eat the joke)
(last line spoken starting "funny joke punchline", but falling into mounting trepidatious horror as the speaker realizes that Aldebaran is over the horizon, of course...).

A co-worker from New Orleans sent me this one:

Peyton Manning, after living a full life, died and went to heaven. When he got to heaven, God was showing him around. They came to a modest little house with a faded Colts flag in the window.
"This house is yours for eternity, Peyton," said God. "This is very special; not everyone gets a house up here."
Peyton felt very special, indeed, and walked up to his house. On his way up to the porch, he noticed another house just around the corner. It was a 3-story mansion with a black and gold sidewalk, a 50 foot tall flag pole with an enormous Saints logo flag, and in every window a New Orleans Saints towel.
Peyton looked at God and said "God, I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but I have a question. I was an all-pro QB, I hold many NFL records, and I even went to the Hall of Fame."
God said "So what's your point, Peyton?"
"Well, why does Drew Brees get a better house than me?
God chuckled and said "Peyton, that's not Drew's house, it's mine."

@383--

my favorite so far. absolutely brilliant.

John Clarke walked into a bar, who picked him up, studied him closely, and said, "You're really not here for the hunting, are you?"

Nietzsche walks into a bar and sees Hume, Aristotle, Berkeley, and Kant all incredibly drunk. He is a little annoyed at the racket they are making, and asks, "Are you guys always like this?"

"Essentially," says Aristotle.
"Force of habit," replies Hume.
"It appears so," says Berkeley.
"Necessarily so!" quips Kant.

Nietzsche scoffs and says, "Show a little willpower!" and storms off.

Scott Taylor, kid bitzer, thank you! I can't take credit for coming up with it -- I heard it from a friend of mine, who heard it from her teenage daughter, who came home with it from school. But I do love it.

"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "ever since I became Pope, they never let me drive, and I'd really like to do the driving today."

In later life, Albert Einstein spent a lot of time being invited to dinners, eating rubbery chicken, and giving the same old after-dinner speech about relativity. On the way to one such dinner, he started grousing to his driver about the rut his life had fallen into, and how he wished something would happen to change things up a bit.

"Tell you what, boss," said his driver. "I've driven you to all these dinners, and I've sat at the back and listened to you give that speech so many times that I bet I could do it just as smoothly as you could. And we look kind of similar. How about we stop somewhere and switch clothes, and today I'll be the famous Albert Einstein, and you can be Charlie the chauffeur?"

Einstein agreed to this, and the switch was made.

Things went well at the dinner: Charlie kept his end of the conversation up at dinner, and he did indeed give a creditable rendition of the speech. After the speech was a question-and-answer session, but most of the questions were the same as always got asked, and Charlie had heard the answers nearly as often as he'd heard the speech.

Then one of the dinner guests asked a new question, an extremely subtle and intelligent question drawing on abstruse details of higher physics.

Einstein thought the game might be up, but Charlie didn't miss a beat: fixing the questioner with a stern look, he said, "What a question! Why, even my chauffeur knows the answer to that one!"

David @ #355:

There once was a chap from Japan
Whose limericks never did scan.
When told this was so,
He replied, "Yes, I know.
But I always prefer to have as many syllables in the last line as I possibly can."

Also, speaking (as some of us have been) of religious men and their animal companions:

There was a young curate of Kew
Who found a stray cat in a pew.
He taught it to speak
Alphabetical Greek,
But it never got further than "μ".

So, this burglar breaks into a bar one night. He's looking around the for the cash when he hears a voice say "GOD IS WATCHING YOU!"

Well, he shines his flashlight around but doesn't see anyone, and goes back to looking for money. But the voice calls out again "GOD IS WATCHING YOU!"

He looks around again, still doesn't see anything. Keeps looking for something to steal when the voice booms "GOD IS WATCHING YOU!"

This time, he spots something: there's a parrot in a cage in the corner of the bar.

"Hey," he asks, "are you the one yelling at me?"

"Yes," says the parrot.

"Well, what's your name, parrot?" asks the burglar.

"John the Baptist," replies the parrot.

"That's a stupid name," says the burglar. "Who named you that?"

"The bartender--the same one who named the Rottweiler* God."

*: doberman, perhaps?

Must be hard for German music theorists, being eaten by Old ONes all the time.

You know, just looking at the scores and going "Hast Dur. Hast Dur. Hast..."

SBC @ 194: You might enjoy this XKCD strip.

A friend once told me a variation on the brick joke involving a purple sheep instead of said brick, but I can't for the life of me remember the sequence.

Chuck Norris wrote this joke. Laugh, or you die.

There was a young man
from Peru, Whose lim'ricks all
looked like haiku. He

said with a laugh, I
cut them in half, The pay is
much better for two.

Peter Watts was convicted.

Bail held over pending sentence.

It looks as if they are going consider probation.

The only charge returned guilty was, "failure to comply"

If we're doing religious order jokes:

Two Benedictines, two Dominicans, two Franciscans, and two Jesuits were sitting together saying their office [yes, that's quite improbable in itself really, isn't it?] when the lights went out.

The two Benedictines went on saying their office.

The two Dominicans entered into a theological disputation on the nature of light.

The two Franciscans fell down on their knees and called out to the Lord to send them some light.

The two Jesuits went out and mended the fuse.

Andrew@401: Is "mended the fuse" idiomatically correct where you're from? Fuses aren't repaired, they're replaced, so it sounds weird to me. (Doesn't really matter to the joke, I understood what was going on.)

It's interesting that this version uses pairs of each; or at least mentions them, it doesn't do anything depending on there being two of any of the orders.

More foul-beaked parrot jokes:

A young bachelor buys a talking parrot thinking it would be just the thing to give his apartment some class. Unfortunately he soon finds it's picked up some bad habits: every time he gets a girl home with him, the parrot starts letting out wolf-whistles and repeating "Somebody's going to get fucked!"

After several dates come to an abrupt end this way, he consults a vet to see whether there's anything he could do about this, and the vet advises that perhaps the parrot is lonely, and he should get another bird to keep it company. He is unable to find another parrot at the pet store, but they do have a female owl, so he brings home the owl and puts it in the cage with the parrot.

When the next date comes up, he invites his girl in, they're sitting on the couch, and the parrot again cuts loose with "Woo-hoo! Somebody's going to get fucked!" The owl cries "Hoo! Hoo!" and the parrot answers, "Not you, you flat-faced bitch!"

Abi @ 368: All of these summer camp memories! We were set on a power-generation lake, so the level dropped throughout the summer. When the water was at a particular level*, we'd be holding initiation ceremonies for the Not Really Secret Society (you mostly don't tell details so that it's fun for the initiates, who start out blindfolded.) At that particular location there was a submerged rock we called Jesus Rock, because it was about twenty or thirty feet from shore, but you could stick someone on there with a torch and in the sunset light, it was very impressive. (He'd get picked up in a canoe shortly after all the newbies were impressed.)

*Pretty low, so we were at a different location for most of the time.

For the proper middle-school technique, say the "Knock, knock" of the next joke in the same breath as the answer to the previous.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Ether.
Ether who?
The Ether Bunny.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Snother.
Snother who?
Snother Ether Bunny.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Cargo.
Cargo who?
Cargo and run over the Ether Bunny.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Boo.
Boo hoo?
Don't cry, Ether Bunny be back again next year.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say Ether Bunny again?

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Consumption.
Consumption who?
Consumption be done about all these [insert appropriate expletive] Ether Bunnies?

Back before Skoda was bought by Volkswagon (for some reason I can't quite fathom), they were not known for making the most reliable cars.

What do you call a Skoda with a sunroof?

A skip (dumpster).

Why do Skodas have rear window defrosters?

Hand warmers.

They're much better cars now.

A parrot joke.

There was a magician on a cruise liner. He was really quite good, but he was constantly harassed by the ship's parrot, which would regularly squawk out the secrets to his tricks. "It's done with mirrors!", "It's up his sleeve!", or "It's in his pocket!" were some of the bird's many common cries.

One night, the magician was getting ready to finish his show when the ship struck an iceberg and sank. The magician survived by clinging to a bit of floating debris, and the parrot with him. After a while of ruffled consternation, the parrot sidled up to the magician and said, "All right, I give up. What did you do with the ship?"

#400. I don't get it. That's not funny!

Paul @393

I heard that when I was a kid, in Yiddish, but instead of Einstein, it was he the famous Galiztianer (spelling probably wrong) Rebbe and the driver drove his *horses*.

Still funny.

I see Terry beat me to it, but Peter Watts has posted about his conviction of failure to comply.

Apparently it is a felony not to drop to the ground immediately when told to, even if you're stunned and confused by repeated illegal blows to the face. Land of the Free, my ass.

There's a really cheap, really small European car. I thought it's name started with an M, but I can't find it. In any case,

How do you double the value of [this small cheap car...]?
Fill the gas tank.

Andrew M at 401, how many Jesuits does it take to change a fuse?

Nona @ 381: So now I know approximately how old I was when I first heard those.

Paul A. @ 393: I recently heard that one with an unspecified-but famous rabbi, rather than Einstein. It's interesting to find out the variations on the theme.

Possibly the Polski Fiat 126p, which had the nickname "Maluch" in Poland, built from 1973 to 2000

Wikipedia on the Fiat 126 range

David Dyer-Bennet@402

Is "mended the fuse" idiomatically correct where you're from? Fuses aren't repaired, they're replaced, so it sounds weird to me. (Doesn't really matter to the joke, I understood what was going on.)

Um, you've confused me now. It sounded right when I wrote it, though I agree it isn't accurate.

It's interesting that this version uses pairs of each; or at least mentions them, it doesn't do anything depending on there being two of any of the orders.

The disputation at least would involve two people. And while one person can certainly say the office by themselves, the traditional way of doing it in religious orders is responsive, so needs at least two.

I haven't finished reading all the jokes, but I have to add one. Hopefully no one else has posted this one yet--although since I made it up years ago, and it's not very good unless you're a goatherd or shepherd, I'm probably okay.

Q. Why didn't the doe goat get pregnant?
A. She was under the wether.

You can tell it as "Why didn't the ewe get pregnant?" to make it less obscure, but I figure if the listener doesn't know that a female goat is properly called a doe, not a nanny, they're not going to know what a wether[1] is.

Now back to reading and trying not to snort ginger ale out my nose.

[1] A castrated male goat or sheep.

Andrew@414: apologies for the confusion. I generally support carrying forward the wording of a joke accurately, unless one is really clear that it's better when revised.

Okay, two of each might have avoided problems with people thinking about the mechanics of saying the office. Makes sense.

Michael Roberts @ 409:

Thanks for the link. That's just really stupid. And yes, I do think the jury should have had the sense to return a "Not Guilty" verdict.

This is -NOT- going to encourage people to visit the USA.

kid bitzer @290 and Janet Croft @303,

Yes! Much better than mine...

The mention of fat in 290 has reminded me of my favourite ever palindrome:

"Doc, note, I dissent: a fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod."

And 263 (Jenna Moran) is genius, too...

Paul 322: "No worries," says the man. "She'll be right."

Perhaps it's just that I'm a dumb (ethnic) Irishman, but I do not get this. Probably because I don't know the stereotype involved. Who is it who says "She'll be right"?

abi 382: Two things about your first parrot joke:

1. Are you quoting from an apology after a disemvoweling? It sounds familiar!

2. I was expecting the joke to end differently. "Good grief, why did the parrot stop swearing?" "He just chilled out." (I like your ending better though.)

Economist joke (culp. David D Friedman):

Two economists walked past a Porsche showroom. One of them pointed at a shiny car in the window and said, "I want that." "Obviously not," the other replied.

*

Barly a joke:

Carrie Nation walks into a bar. "Men," she cries, "don't you want to be saved from a drunkard's fate?" And without further ado, she proceeds to smash up the joint with her hatchet, until the Sheriff arrives with no shortage of deputies.

"Ma'am," the Sheriff hollers, "you're under arrest!"

"What for?" she demands, offended. "I was only axin'!"

*

Ethnic joke:

An Essex girl, a Southall girl, and a Luton girl all get twenty years' jail for tax evasion. Because it's their first offence, they're each allowed one comfort to sustain them over the long stretch ahead. The prison governor asks them each to make their choice.

The Essex girl asks for a Premier League footballer, and comes out twenty years later with her own budding football team.

The Southall girl asks for a mobile phone, and comes out twenty years later with a billion pounds and a controlling interest in Microsoft.

The Luton girl asks for all the cigarettes they can stack in her cell. She comes out twenty years later and says, "Anybody got a light?"

Paul 322: "No worries," says the man. "She'll be right."

Perhaps it's just that I'm a dumb (ethnic) Irishman, but I do not get this. Probably because I don't know the stereotype involved. Who is it who says "She'll be right"?

abi 382: Two things about your first parrot joke:

1. Are you quoting from an apology after a disemvoweling? It sounds familiar!

2. I was expecting the joke to end differently. "Good grief, why did the parrot stop swearing?" "He just chilled out." (I like your ending better though.)

Arg. Error message, clicked Post after it, but it had already posted. Dratz.

praisegod barebones, 185:

Q: Pourquoi Nicolas Sarkozy mange-t-il qu'un oeuf pour le petit dejeuner?

A: Parce que one egg, ca suffit.

I don't know enough French to get this, so I asked my boss, who is fluent in French, to explain.

He informs me that the wording isn't quite right. The way the answer should go is:

A: Parce que un oeuf, ça suffit.

This is because "un oeuf" sounds like "enough." So in French, it says "Because one egg is enough." You still need to know English to really get it.

It took him time to figure out something was wrong, and so don't feel bad!

Patrick @#354: Hee! I'm sending that to my Dad, who is both a punster and a third-order Benedictine.

Speaking of Novenas:

O'Toole worked in the lumber yard for twenty years and all that time he'd been stealing the wood and selling it. At last his conscience began to bother him and he went to confession to repent.

"Father, it's 15 years since my last confession, and I've been stealing wood from the lumber yard all those years," he told the priest.

"I understand my son," says the priest. "Can you make a Novena?"

O'Toole said, "Father, if you have the plans, I've got the wood."

DD-B and Andy, I gather fuses are properly 'mended' in the UK, or at least were in 1967. Paul McCartney could be handy mending a fuse three years ago (id est, when he was 64).

He may have just thought 'mending' sounded better than 'changing' though.

So, a rabbi walks into a bar. He has a frog on his head. The bartender looks up and says "Hey, where did you get one of those?"

The frog said, "Brooklyn, there's thousands of them there."

The integral of dcabin/cabin + the speed of light = houseboat

Q: How many dadaists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: To get to the other side.

Mark@425: thank you, that's helpful. I wasn't just mistaken, then.

Chris @423 - thanks! Although now the whole thing sounds like an inverted back-translation from an originally English joke, to wit:

Q: Why does Nicolas Sarkozy only have one egg for breakfast?

A: Because one egg is un oeuf.

So perhaps praisegod barebones' original intent was to double the joke for very bilingual people.

Carrie@151: I heard it as three sopranos- one to go up the ladder, one to kick the ladder out from under her and one to say "I knew she couldn't reach it.

How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. That's a hardware problem.

Mark@425:

I would say 'mending' a fuse for the old-style fuses where you have to put a new piece of fuse wire in between the contacts. On the other hand I might say 'changing' a fuse would be slotting in a pre-built replacement fuse (which applies more to electronics than power systems).

... and I originally showed up to note that Google had[1] no direct hit for the phrase "All that and a bag of hammers", so it may be original to me.

[1] What is the correct tense for something that was true when I wrote it, but will not be when you read it?

Xopher @419:
Are you quoting from an apology after a disemvoweling? It sounds familiar!

No, but it's one of my characteristic prose styles (middling-florid and over-comma'd, typical Friday), and you've clearly read my internet prose for long enough to be attuned.

Q: How many customer engineers does it take to make an IBM System3 do a logical left shift?

A: Sixteen: one to hold the bits and fifteen to move the machine!

Two legionnaires are wandering lost in the desert. Finally, they come to an oasis where some merchants have set up tents. Desperate for water, they go to the first tent, but the merchant there only sells sponge cake. They go to the second tent, where they only sell jelly. The third tent, only custard.

The first legionnaire turns to his friend and says, "This is the strangest market I've ever seen." The second one replies, "It *is* a trifle bazaar."

abi: In case it wasn't clear, I meant an apology by the disemvowelee.

Xopher @437:

It was clear. Don't worry.

So a kid from Ohio comes to Harvard for a campus interview, stops a Harvard student on the street and asks, "Where's the admissions office at?"

The student replies, "Here at Harvard we know enough not to end a sentence with a preposition."

"Okay," says the Ohio kid, "Where's the admissions office at, asshole?"

---------------------------
Bling guy walks into Walmart, picks up his seeing eye dog and starts swinging him around in the air.

Naturally a crowd gathers and the manager rushes over.

"Can we help you with anything, Sir?"

"No thanks. I'm just looking around."
------------------------------------------

Carrot gets hit by a truck.
His parents rush to the hospital and wait by his side until the doctor delivers the horrible news.
"He'll never be more than a vegetable."

------------------------------------------
Ruthie and Johnny side by side
Went out for an auto ride.
John hit a bump.
Ruth hit a tree.
John kept going ruthlessly.

Harvey walked into a bar and all the regulars greeting him, shouts of "Hi Harvey" reverberated around the room. The bartenders, waitresses, even the owner joined in; only one man sitting at the bar was silent.

Harvey walked up to the gentleman and said "hi."

The gentleman politely inquired "Do I know you?"

Harvey was shocked, "everybody knows me, I'm Harvey!"

The gentleman was apologetic but insisted that he didn't know Harvey, what's more, he doubted the claim that everyone knew him. "Surely in this whole world, there's got to be someone else who doesn't know you."

Harvey stuck to his guns, insisting that everybody knew him and to prove it he would bet the man that no matter who he named that person would recognize Harvey.

“I bet you don't know Arnold Schwarzenegger” said the man.

Harvey laughed and expounded on how he and Arnold were old friends. To prove it, he took the gentleman outside, caught a cab and they both rode to the Governor’s mansion. Half an hour after that they were laughing it up with Harvey's old friend the Governator.

Ok, said the man. Let's try someone even bigger, How about Barak Obama. There's no way you can know him too.

One redeye flight to the east coast later, the gentleman found himself sitting in Barak's private quarters of the White House as Barak and Harvey reminisced.

Ok, the man thought, a lot of politicians know each other, maybe I made a mistake picking two guys from the same profession. Let's try someone really different and from a foreign country too. "I bet you don't know the Pope" said the man as they were leaving the Whitehouse.

Harvey interrupted his conversation with his friend the gate guard. "Sure, I know his Holiness and I'll be happy to prove it to you." Another plane flight later they were both in Vatican City. Their timing was perfect, they entered Saint Peter's Square amid throngs of worshipers, and the pope was just stepping out on the balcony.

Harvey pushed forward, leaving the man behind. A few minutes later he emerged on the balcony and was warmly greeted by the Pope. Harvey glanced down at the throngs of people and saw the gentleman passed out in the square, a circle of concerned citizens around him.

He rushed back down to the gentleman's side just as the man was regaining consciousness. "What happened?” said Harvey. “Surely you couldn’t have been that surprised that the pope and I know each other?

It's not that the man replied, While you were up there the guy next to me nudged my arm and asked "Who's the Kraut up there with Harvey?"

Xopher @ 421, my interpretation was that after 2/3 of the brains were removed, what you had left was an Australian.

Janet, thanks. The fact that the English apparently think the Irish and Australians are stupid is...well, it'd be funny if it weren't so annoying.

I'm tempted to post very anti-English jokes, but I can't think of anything funnier than England itself!

Thomas@432: put a new piece of fuse wire in between the contacts -- now that's one of the most terrifying sentences I've ever read. Old fuse systems here might be plug fuses, or screw-in, but nothing where you can ever get at the actual fusible element.

Two guys in Manhattan are standing at the bus stop. One turns to the other, and says, "Hey, buddy, I left my wallet at home. Can you spare a couple of bucks for bus fare?"

The other guy turns to him and says imperiously, "'Neither a borrower nor a lender be'. William Shakespeare."

The first guy looks back at him and says, "Oh, yeah? FUCK YOU! David Mamet."