What sort of humour is this?

[FenceFurniture]

Some mates and I have been fooling around with this type of humour for the last decade or so, and we’ve come to wondering how we should categorise it. There’s pun in there, but it goes a little further than that by using nouns as verbs. The best examples are:

Most people, when asked who their favourite artist is, Picasso.

In the late 90s I was asked who should run for the President of East Timor. “I think Jose Ramos Horta”, I replied. (Spanish/Portuguese pronunciation required)

As we get older I think in our blood tests they should testosterone.

Would you lower back pain?

Someone who is normally quite sharp asked me recently how a guillotine works. "Simple", I said, "you razor blade".

I thought that the keyboards bands used in the 60s were just "organs", but maybe they Wurlitzers.

If you were going to rate film directors out of ten, what would you Scorcese?

I was thinking... sometimes men are supposed to be sexually indiscriminate, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I mean, would you rutabaga?

And my personal favourite:

I’d hate to diabetes.



So, how would you categorise it? All additions to the genre welcome.

[jimbur]

Reminds me of my sister's one-time favourite joke. Woman walks in to a chemist shop for a bar of soap and is asked, "plain or scent?"
She answers, "No, I'll carry it myself".
She never did have much of a sense of humour.

[fenderbelly]

No Idea.:no:

only two that come to mind is

A pane in the glass
What would you rather B or a Wasp

[Grumpy John]

FF it's very subtle and clever humour. For that reason I don't think it would appeal to the Y Genners, they can't read anything with more than four letters and at least one letter has to be substituted with a number :D.

[chambezio]

Did you hear about Helena Rubenstein? Max Factor.

[Grumpy John]

Jeez, that's an old one.
Can I hold your Palmolive, not on your Lifebouy.


239859239858

[rwbuild]

FF it's very subtle and clever humour. For that reason I don't think it would appeal to the Y Genners, they can't read anything with more than four letters and at least one letter has to be substituted with a number :D.

and this 1 is jus4u2 :D

[rwbuild]

Alpha Beta Theta to the Pi and eight the lot

[FenceFurniture]

What would you rather be or a Wasp?

I'll give a gong to this. The secret is that at face value the sentence must not make any sense (i.e. grammatically incorrect).

Some of the others are good, but don't quite satisfy that criteria.

[rustynail]

Did you hear about Helena Rubenstein? Max Factor.

I thought it was Maxectomy. Better safe than sorry.

[Dodgy Dovetails]

Well, this a very true story (and one we must all have shared at one time or another.)

I was in a dental chair once in rather bad pain from the dentist's brutal attentions. As a consequence, I didn't know whether to sense organ, dentition, cast iron stomach or root canal therapy!

[AlexS]

I think you'd class them as 'Dad' jokes.

[fenderbelly]

I'll give a gong to this. The secret is that at face value the sentence must not make any sense (i.e. grammatically incorrect).

Some of the others are good, but don't quite satisfy that criteria.


Ah well, gong but not forgotten.

[Dovetail]

The difference between a canary is that one leg is yellow and the other is also red.

Makes no sense at all!:;

[MBM888]

What's that on the road ahead?:unsure:

[rwbuild]

I'll give a gong to this. The secret is that at face value the sentence must not make any sense (i.e. grammatically incorrect).



Gee, Julia wood turnit inta a hyperbowl and call it Miss Soggyknee

[Grumpy John]

Gee, Julia wood turnit inta a hyperbowl and call it Miss Soggyknee

No, you're thinking of Pawline.

[rwbuild]

No, you're thinking of Pawline.

You mean Poor Lean Han Son

[labr@]

Do these qualify?

- I'm tone deaf below middle C so I can't piccolo note.

- I never went to look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but I saw indigo.

- I have to shift the compost heap before I can go fishing again but I need some equipment so I bought a shovel today and I'll get a barramundy.

- I was desperate for money so even though he's a mate I decided to confess.

[FenceFurniture]

Do these qualify?

- I'm tone deaf below middle C so I can't piccolo note.

- I never went to look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but I saw indigo.

- I have to shift the compost heap before I can go fishing again but I need some equipment so I bought a shovel today and I'll get a barramundy.

- I was desperate for money so even though he's a mate I decided to confess.

Crackajack! :roflmao:

[ian]

time flies like an arrow

fruit flies like a banana

[doug3030]

time flies like an arrow

fruit flies like a banana


"Great Tits like watermelons"



Its not what you think, its a famous anthropologist talking about a species of bird and their dietary preferences.

Doug :D

[FenceFurniture]

"Would you like to Pierce Brosnan?"
"No, but I'd Marion Cotillard"

[labr@]

If you go to speaker's corner you can expectorant.

And on a Tolkien theme.....
Wizards like dwarfs but hobbits preference.



Getting back to the original question of what sort of humour this is it occurred to me that the key to the alternative interpretation is a slight change in pronunciation - usually just by shifting the primary or secondary stress to a different syllable.
So it could be called "stress modified pronunciation embedded punsterism". A nice simple straightforward self explanatory term.

No, don't thank me - I'm here to help :hahaha:

[FenceFurniture]

It all revolves around a hidden verb, which makes the grammar incorrect. So maybe "Hidden Verb Puns".

[Dodgy Dovetails]

Mate, you have got the gist of it.

Your second one is more Austentayshus than it is right on message, but it is good in its own right as a varietal.

Your third one works much better if you spell "barramundi" correctly, as this gives you the requisite level of absurdity needed to sustain the humour - important point that.

Your first one is inspired by Fence Furniture's guillotine gag and is in the same quality league as that one is. Expectorant? Love it! Both disgusting and funny at the same time

As for your last one, I thought Fess Parker was dead? And he was such a noble and upright figure I thought you'd never want to confess. (Though as you have already admitted doing it, I'm struggling to define the difference.)

As for the rest of you, I admire your enthusiasm, but I'm afraid you'll have to lift your game. Lame jokes and irrelevant puns aren't cutting the mustard. Maybe i'm still a bit miffed, given the dearth of quality material here, that Fence Furniture didn't award me the gong that he gave you. I would have thought that anyone, given the opportunity, would like to root canal therapy.

Where is my frigging gong mate?

[FenceFurniture]

Hey Dodgy, it is entirely possible that I'm missing something with yours, and I'm waiting for the penny to tinkle. Baz, the inventor of most of these gags, was very impressed with your effort. so on that basis you are very welcome to a gong (albeit by proxy). I certainly want to root canal therapy (I've had it), but who is getting dented? Ition? I was also struggling with which organ you were sensing (and the relevance). So I thought I'd stay schtum for a while to see if it came to me, y'see.

[Dodgy Dovetails]

Hey Dodgy, it is entirely possible that I'm missing something with yours, and I'm waiting for the penny to tinkle. Baz, the inventor of most of these gags, was very impressed with your effort. so on that basis you are very welcome to a gong (albeit by proxy). I certainly want to root canal therapy (I've had it), but who is getting dented? Ition? I was also struggling with which organ you were sensing (and the relevance). So I thought I'd stay schtum for a while to see if it came to me, y'see.

That's cool Fence, I forgot to add a smiley face to my entry.

Well, I was sensing pain you see, via the body's largest organ, the skin. In this case that area of it that makes up the interior of the mouth. Dentition is a dental term, and as far as I've worked out what you guys are up to "ition" is the nonsense part of the joke. I'm glad "Baz" got it anyway!

[FenceFurniture]

That's cool Fence, I forgot to add a smiley face to my entry.

Well, I was sensing pain you see, via the body's largest organ, the skin. In this case that area of it that makes up the interior of the mouth. Dentition is a dental term, and as far as I've worked out what you guys are up to "ition" is the nonsense part of the joke. I'm glad "Baz" got it anyway!

Yeah, no worries mate, I read it as with a smiley anyway. Actually I quite often leave a smiley out to keep it dry (you know, poker face and all that). When dropping humour on someone I get the best satisfaction when there's a slight delay before they get the joke, especially if they are slightly offended for a microsecond before they realise what's going on.

Just pondering the structure of these, and the key is that when spoken they make sense, but when read there is a missing verb. Now maybe that could be seen as pedantic, but it's the difference between a chuckle and a shout of laughter. Labr@'s expectorant gag was a classic example.

[Dodgy Dovetails]

That is a good technique! I'll remember that.

As for me, I always wanted to learn more about woodworking, but fewtel me.

[FenceFurniture]

:roflmao: Mate, I have to elect you to "Associate of the Hidden Verb Pun Club". That is a particularly good gag.

[Dodgy Dovetails]

:roflmao: Mate, I have to elect you to "Associate of the Hidden Verb Pun Club". That is a particularly good gag.

Thanks Fence! But we'll have to work out another name for them, as there are too many exceptions to the hidden "verb" rule. (As with my last one.) Getting a name for them was the aim of this thread, as well as some laughs of course. @labr is good - he must be a well read type I think.

[FenceFurniture]

Yes, Labr@ is also worthy of an Associateship.

There's a hidden verb in there - "tell".

[Dodgy Dovetails]

Yes, Labr@ is also worthy of an Associateship.

There's a hidden verb in there - "tell".

Doing! : - 1

You're right - there is one there. I've got a lot to learn!

[labr@]

must be a well read type

Obviously not well read enough though - I had to look up fewtel as it was completely new to me (which could explain the quality and progress rate of some of my projects :rolleyes:).

This type of thing is probably going to appeal to those who like cryptic crosswords, which includes me even though I'm not really good at them.

On a slightly more ordinary plane of punsterism I stopped at a sleazy market today and saw someone trying to fence furniture with dodgy dovetails. (Ya just can't help it with user names like that :U)

Oh, and Vincent you a message which I hope you get before lanterns the power off.

[Dodgy Dovetails]

I swear Labr@ just got in ahead of me! I had literally just turned on the computer to write:

"Hey, do you Fence Furniture or are you totally legit?"

Then I was going to say, there's one right under your nose my friend!

Labr@ has due precedence and I bow to it.

Back to the (now redundant) drawing board. Everything is now cad cam

[Dodgy Dovetails]

Oh, and Vincent you a message which I hope you get before lanterns the power off.[/QUOTE]

Labr@ these are so lame, even Austentayshus would have rejected them. Which is a good point of me to make. These words gags are in a different, higher sphere to the Austentayshus style. He isn't relevant here.

I am quick with praise for your first class efforts - "piccilo note" for example. That one makes sense both literally and on an abstract level - high standard there mate! The flip side of the coin is that I will review your pale, groan worthy, and in this case irrelevant efforts, with the same yardstick. (Even though, in woodworking of course, we no longer use avoirdupois.)

Who would have thought humour was such an, er, serious business?

These gags, I'm starting to realise, are unique, which is no doubt why Fence Furniture put them out there to try and get a name for the rarefied and unique style of humour they represent. Who did he claim was the original inventor of them? He might think a little bit like me!

So you'll have to self-edit next time mate, before public release, and measure them first against your successes. Because those ones have been a treat.

Well, look, I can't leave off now without offering something new up can I? If I am going to talk the talk, I'll have to walk the walk. I'm trying to keep it a bit relevant to woodworking, and as dust is a constant problem in our activities (particularly, it seems, for Fence Furniture. I have admired the elaborate dust countermeasures he has rigged up, and posted in a mildly and justly boastful way on this forum) so here is my latest - verb free! - effort. (For you multi-skilled woodworking / drummers out there, drum roll please!)

"Asbestos I can work out, I wouldn't breathe that."

[FenceFurniture]

We three originators (Baz, Dick and myself) have agreed that we will call these "Incommunicados", and we are therefore the "Incommunicado Triumvirate". Our first (and last) resolution is to cease all contact. :D

[rwbuild]

We three originators (Baz, Dick and myself) have agreed that we will call these "Incommunicados", and we are therefore the "Incommunicado Triumvirate". Our first (and last) resolution is to cease all contact. :D

But you haven't...have you :D

[FenceFurniture]

But you haven't...have you :D

Well funnily enough, I've heard nothing since.....

[labr@]

I wanted to hire someone with ESP so the employment agency sentimentalist.

When I saw a kid with a carrot in the lion enclosure I asked him if he wanted to be eaten and he said no, but the vegemite.

My mate had a leadlight picture of a beautiful ship but she was broken in one corner so he solder.

[FenceFurniture]

I wanted to hire someone with ESP so the employment agency sentimentalist.

:2tsup:

[Dodgy Dovetails]

:2tsup:

I think they must make grammatical sense too, as a sentence, and not just be all set up just to enable a payoff at the end, as with "sentimentalist." That does not make sense on face value as well. With Fence Furniture's great "Razor blade" gag and, if I may also modestly put forward here my own "fewtel" gag (which I have been allowing myself a chuckle or two about since) they do make sense on face value as well.

It does go to show that classic success in this form is a rare beast, with many pretenders that are worth appeciation, but not the status of a true "Incommunicado." (I get that - "in" communicado it is a play on being "in" communication with these and not being "in" communication at the same time. Ie, making sense and not making sense at the same time.)

Nevertheless Labr@, I am enjoying the workings of your mind. I feared this novel grammatical thread had expired, and that we were going to have to go back to knocking the knots out of pine boards to make novelty dice from, manouevreing spokeshaves around like the mini sub in Richard Basehart's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - and devising ever more elaborate dust collection devices asbestos we can.

[FenceFurniture]

I just got an email from Dick (in Spain), and he says that his favourites work by omitting a repeated sound:
"All my favourites have it: pick Picasso, Horta oughta, score Scorcese, test testosterone, were Wurlitzers, tar Tarkovsky, die of diabetes, pierce Pierce, etc. To me, the omission of a repeated sound is a form of hyper-efficient and highly logical information compression, and the contrast between this machine-minded energy saving (information is energy) and the linguistic absurdity that results is the real beauty of the gags. "

His Uncle Jim was a professor of linguistics at Edinburgh University, and he's seeing him at Xmas, so he'll be sure to drop them on him.

They are indeed tough to get working properly. I think my total offering in ten years has been 4 that work properly. Baz is the best at them.

[Dodgy Dovetails]

They are indeed tough to get working properly. I think my total offering in ten years has been 4 that work properly. Baz is the best at them.[/QUOTE]


Thanks, BG, I appreciate that.

[labr@]

It's all become too analytical for me - and I think a lot of the discussion has gone over my head.

As a great wit once said:

Analyzing humour never made anyone laugh - it just boredom.

[Allan at Wallan]

Will have a go and see what the reaction is.

My mother-in-law was arriving by train
and I was centimetre.


Allan

[labr@]

:2tsup: Yep, looks good to me!

Although if it was my mother in law I'd make millimetre. :p