The first joke book was published in English, titled “Joe Miller’s Jests”, in the middle of 1700’s. Known as Joe to his friends, Joseph Miller was of a man of few words. Yet his talent lay in making people laugh with his jokes and wisecracks. After his death in 1738, his family had no financial support where his friend John Mottley published a book full of his jokes and witticisms; “Joe Miller’s Jest”. The original book had 72 pages with 272 jokes. Later people continued adding jokes till it grew to collect over 1500 jokes.
Joke is considered to be a story or series of words spoken with the intent of making people laugh or making them humorous to the listener or reader. Jokes are usually performed either on a stage in front of a large audience, or in font of friends or family members for entertainment. The most spontaneous response for a joke is laughter. Many types of joke books available span across topics such as self-deprecating jokes, Political jokes, jokes based on situations involving two people, jokes on professions such as Medical, Mathematical, etc. Religion jokes are based on mockery or humiliation, generally emphasize on the rigid aspects showcased by either a race or religion.
Jokes inspired from personal insults such as “Yo Mama” (insults directed towards the mother), and Question-Answer based jokes. Most famous question answer based jokes revolve around puns or spoonerisms in the answers. Most common topics in this genre are: “Why did the chicken cross the road”, “Knock, Knock.”, “How many people does it take to change a light bulb?” where people is usually substituted with common professions, companies, political leaders, etc, and “What’s the difference?” |
