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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Study says jokes lose
their punch (line)
as we get oldA duck, a blonde, a rabbi, a pastor, a doctor, a gorilla, a dwarf, four lawyers, a gentleman from an Eastern European country and Henry Kissinger walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What is this, some kind of a joke?"
If you don't understand that bit of drollery, you could be getting old. There's an outside possibility that the joke isn't actually funny. But probably age is just catching up with you. At least according to another one of those alarming new studies. This study comes from Canada, the birthplace of Western humor, not to mention polar bear steak kabobs. It indicates that the older you get, the harder it is to understand jokes. That's kind of scary, considering the older you get, everything seems more and more like a joke.
Researchers tested people of various ages, including seeing if they could pick the correct punch line for various jokes. Older people had a harder time picking out the punch lines than younger folks, researchers claimed. I doubt this is true. I've told lots of jokes to older people, and not only did they understand them, they offered me good money never to tell them again.
In any case, I've put together a test you can take in the privacy of your own home to find out if you are getting old or are merely humor-impaired. Simply pick the correct punch line to the following jokes:
It's a small world but:
1. I wouldn't want to paint it.
2. It's all we have.Ninety-nine percent of lawyers:
1. Give the rest a bad name.
2. Charge reasonable rates for their excellent services.A turtle was walking down an alley when he was mugged by a gang of snails. The police arrive, and a detective asks the turtle what happened. The turtle says:
1. I don't know, it all happened so fast.
2. What do you think happened? I was mugged by a psychotic gang of French food.A German shepherd goes to the telegram office, takes out a blank form and writes "Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof" and hands it to a clerk. The clerk says, "There's only nine words here. For the same price you can send one more woof." The dog says:
1. Yeah. But that wouldn't make sense at all.
2. Oh, OK. Woof.Two fish are in a tank. One turns to the other and says:
1. Do you know how to drive this thing?
2. Perhaps we should be inside of a water tank instead of an Army combat vehicle.A math teacher and a philosophy teacher are being chased by a stampeding angry elephant. The math guy makes some quick calculations and says, "It's no good trying to out run it, it's catching up." The philosophy teachers says:
1. I'm not trying to outrun the elephant, I'm trying to outrun you.
2. Why couldn't we be in the joke about the snails?Pens and pencils down, please. Now, if you picked punch line No. 2 to any of the jokes, you are either getting old fast or have a very twisted sense of humor.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com
