Why Is That Funny?
nautil.us
nautil.us
A man was golfing with his friend on a fine Sunday morning
A hearse with a funeral procession of cars passed by
The first man stood at attention with his hat over his heart
The second man said "Did you know them?"
The first replied, "Know them? She was my wife!"
It was such an unexpected thing for him to say that I burst out laughing.
Picture of Stalin.jpg
Top line: Dark humor is like food
Bottom line: Not everyone gets it> 2 men walk into a bar. The first man orders a scotch and soda. The second man remembers something he'd forgotten, and it doubles him over with pain. He falls to the floor shaking.... and then through the floor and into the Earth. He looks back up at the first man, but he doesn't call out to him. They're not that close.
It doesn't last long for fat people.
"The other night I saw a couple weaving all over the street, I said 'Honestly; get a loom'".
"Chair of the Dyslexic Society was recently given an OBE[1], he said "What's the point, I can't play the bloody thing'".
"Friend of mine had a penis extension. Now his house looks really stupid."
"The hardest part about making skimmed milk must be throwing the cows across the lake".
- Gary Delaney, 31 minute of best one-liners, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hcOgFHd7o (some nsfw)
[1] Order of the British Empire award from the monarch.
A couple is married 40 yrs when the wife suddenly dies - After the funeral, the pallbearers are carrying the casket out when they accidentally bump into a wall, jarring the casket. They hear a faint moan, open the casket, and are shocked to find the wife is actually alive... She lives for ten more years and then dies again. A funeral is held and once again the pallbearers are carrying out the casket. As they are walking down the hallway, the husband points and yells to the pallbearers "Watch out for that wall!"
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Boy to dad: how was I born? Dad: well your mom and I got together in a chat room on Yahoo, then I set up an email date and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room googled each other and your mom agreed to a download from my hard drive. When I was ready to upload we discovered neither one of us used a firewall… It was too late to hit the delete button and 9 months later a pop-up appeared that said, “You’ve got Male"
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A father buys a lie detector robot that slaps people when they lie. He decides to test it out at dinner one night. The father asks his son what he did that afternoon. The son says, "I did some schoolwork." The robot slaps the son. The son says, "Ok, Ok. I was at a friend's house watching movies." Dad asks, "What movie did you watch?" Son says, "Toy Story." The robot slaps the son. Son says, "Ok, Ok, we were watching porn."
Dad says, "What? At your age I didn't even know what porn was." The robot slaps the father. Mom laughs and says, "Well, he certainly is your son." The robot slaps the mother.
Robot for sale.
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Alright one more:
I am now proud to announce that I am selling adult toys. I hope no one is embarrassed to ask for them. I have all kinds, sizes and styles according to your needs. Discretion is guaranteed!! I am more then willing and able to demonstrate any items listed for you. Ask for yours anytime. I have everything listed below if needed:
Walkers, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, canes, disposable diapers etc etc.
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p.s. you'd probably love Steven Wright.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/181771.Steven_Wright
But they are best heard in his deadpan delivery:
What is the most simple way to describe something? A noun. Ok but that already exists, I need adjective too. Still too common, let's add another adjective. I used English corpus and generated random triplets in the form of adjective-adjective-noun.
Most of it was gibberish. Occasionally there was something plausible or even viable, even more rarely something interesting. As I was reading this long list, I stumbled upon this gem:
Creepy wet uncle
And I laughed. As I continue reading the list, every once in a while there was something funny. But not once have I found words that would make me cry. Before, I thought that laughter and crying are equal but opposite emotions, but they are not. Crying requires much deeper emotional connection while all it takes to make me laugh are 3 random words.
That day I also realize why Craig Ferguson was funny (this was back when he still had the late late show), he just say or do something random. That was his secret. I felt cheated, the cheapness of laugh was exposed.
(There was also someone featured on HN who wrote a daily post containing 3-4 product/service ideas for a while; those had a bit more thought put into them than a RNG can provide.)
This may be the most reductive thing I've ever read. It did make me laugh, though!
FWIW, I think this is what has made Twitter so popular. The original 140 character limit with out the ability to do tweet threads in the form we have now put a lot of constraints on people. Being thoughtful or funny in 140 characters is difficult, but a lot of folks came up with some pretty amazing insights and quips.
As a social but introverted person, moments of the right funny words coming out at just the right moment, without consciously thinking about it, don't happen nearly as often as I'd like.
One memorable moment for me was maybe 15 years ago, at an event for prospective law students in Boston (kinda like a job fair, but all the tables are reps from law schools rather than companies).
So I'm introducing myself to these two law school reps, and it's going well, including my interest in technology policy. But when I say I want to represent the public interest, I sense sudden awkward. One of the reps says they have a research center that's an industry partnership, and my immediate thought is that I'm not sounding like a fit for that.
In that instant, I was making eye contact, and the words came out without conscious thought -- I felt a beaming grin, and heard a very clear and confident and determined tone of myself saying, "Know thy enemy." They crack up, and, as I joked to others afterwards, it felt like suddenly the application process was a mere formality. :)
This is harnessable in our lives: laugh more and play more to be more flexible and to continuously learn. And to have friends!
I had never heard of this, but it's quite amazing what strange rules we impose on children.
I was sure it must be reference to something but apparently it's not. It's funny to people all by itself.
Plus, it's rather persistent about it. Then you think, well, even if the Loch Ness monster were real, and it somehow understood and needed money, that would be a tall order, so here is this anachronistic marvel reduced to begging, just so it could get that gas station burrito.