joke
Sign in to savethumbnail|upright=1.25|Boris Yeltsin and [[Bill Clinton enjoying a joke]] A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:
AI overview
A joke is a form of humor that uses words arranged in a specific narrative structure—typically a story with dialogue ending in a punch line—to make people laugh, often employing techniques like wordplay, irony, or logical incongruity rather than being meant literally. Jokes matter because they are a fundamental way humans use language to entertain each other and create shared moments of laughter and connection.
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Article
26 sectionsContents
- History in print
- Telling jokes
- Framing: "Have you heard the one…"
- Telling
- Punchline
- Response
- Shifting contexts, shifting texts
- Relationships
- Electronic
- Joke cycles
- Tragedies and catastrophes
- Ethnic jokes
- Absurdities and gallows humour
- Classification systems
- Joke and humour research
- Psychology
- Linguistics
- Folklore and anthropology
- Physiology of laughter
- Computational humour
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Footnotes
- Bibliography
- Further reading
thumbnail|upright=1.25|Boris Yeltsin and [[Bill Clinton enjoying a joke]] A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:
It is generally held that jokes benefit from brevity, containing no more detail than is needed to set the scene for the punchline at the end. In the case of riddle jokes or one-liners, the setting is implicitly understood, leaving only the dialogue and punchline to be verbalised. However, subverting these and other common guidelines can also be a source of humour—the shaggy dog story is an example of an anti-joke; although presented as a joke, it contains a long drawn-out narrative of time, place and character, rambles through many pointless inclusions and finally fails to deliver a punchline. Jokes are a form of humour, but not all humour is in the form of a joke. Some humorous forms which are not verbal jokes are: involuntary humour, situational humour, practical jokes, slapstick and anecdotes.