Jokes are a form of verbal humor, including funny stories with a punchline. They have a beginning, middle, and end. Unlike riddles, jokes don’t require input from others and the question functions as a setup. There are many categories of jokes.
Jokes are a form of verbal humor, including jokes, riddles, and other things that make us laugh; but joke is also a form: a funny, made-up story with a punchline told by one person. It differs from an anecdote, which may be a funny story and have a punchline, but is about an actual or true incident. Because it is a form of story, it has some of the attributes of a story, such as a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is the setup. While the setting, mood and tone of, say, a short story or novel are established over time, these elements are often compressed into a single sentence in a bar.
There were two truckers in a rest area. A lawyer died and went to heaven. Have you heard of the _____ that _____?
Some jokes, like the type invoked by the last setup sentence above, are just two sentences: the first sets up the story, and the second delivers the punchline. This is the most compact type. Note that the question is only formal here: a real answer is not expected and, in most cases, cannot be given.
This distinguishes this form of humor from a riddle in two ways. First, another person’s input is crucial to the shape of the puzzle, but it isn’t in this type of joke. Secondly, in a riddle, the question is specifically constructed to be solved by a clever guesser, but in such a joke, the question functions as a setup and is not meant to give too many clues as to what is to come. Here is an example:
What is the latest crime wave in New York City? Viola recital in the car.
Note that there isn’t enough information in the question for anyone to guess the answer. Instead, the question sets the scene and mood: build tension by suggesting a dramatic and dangerous topic, and then undermine the tension with a ridiculous response. This helps us to understand this example as a joke, rather than a riddle.
There are certain categories of jokes that have many, many examples. Others include those about computers, blondes, lawyers, the military, off-color jokes and those about some instrumentalists, especially violists, banjo players and drummers.
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