Page 71 - The Language of Humour

58 ‘MY MOTHER-IN-LAW…’
Activity with text
Here are two examples of lawyer jokes. Collect other jokes that are
currently circulating with a powerful, but unpopular, butt. Do they use
established formulas? (No commentary follows.)

Why are laboratory rats being replaced by lawyers? For two reasons:
the scientists get attached to the rats; and there are some things a rat
just won’t do.
What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? One is a
scum-sucking bottom dweller, and the other is a fish.

Self-deprecating humour

In the following examples the humour involves the lower status of the
teller, in relation to the butt. Some humour involves a complete
reversal, where the usual butt of jokes—woman, working class, black
etc.—turns the tables. The victim bites back in these cases:

A definition of a Southern Moderate is a cat who’ll lynch you
from a low tree. (Dick Gregory)

Look, for example, at the following two jokes, which are similar in
many respects. If you respond differently to them, it may be due to the
reversal of the butt.

A man and a woman are sitting at home in front of the fire. The man
gets up and says, ‘I’m off down the pub. Get your coat on.’ ‘Oh,’
says the woman surprised, ‘are you taking me out for a drink?’ ‘No.
I need to put the fire out’
An elderly man and woman are sitting at home in front of the
fire. The man turns to his wife and says, ‘You know, I think I’d
like to be cremated.’ ‘OK,’ she says, ‘get your coat on.’

Sometimes the tellers make themselves the butt of the humour. The
female stand-up comic Jo Brand puts herself down for being fat,
unattractive and desperate for a man: ‘I’m not an opera singer -I just
look like one.’ There is a sort of power to get in first.
Self-deprecating humour need not always be so specific; some
humorous writers target the foibles and weaknesses that they see as
common to all human beings. Ambrose Bierce is often described as a