A History of Jokes

[Theophylact]

From this week's New Yorker.

Warning: although there are no "dirty words" in the article (this is the New Yorker, after all), some of the jokes -- including a couple that are at least 1500 years old -- are pretty ....ummm... .

But I couldn't pass up this comment:

Where do jokes come from? "There are two classic theories about the origin of jokes," Dundes said. "One is that they come from stockbrokers, who have time on their hands between sales and a communications network to send jokes around. The other theory is that they are made up by prisoners, who have a lot of spare time and a captive audience." He added, "Lately, these two theories have merged."

[Gait_Keeper]

[miriam]

and you also need spare time to read that article, which is so long. I gave up reading it

[Detritus]

That was an interesting read, thanks Theo.

"The hand writing is the First Lady's."