53 Comments on How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

Michael K on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 1:13 pm


I’d give it an 8. I’m male by the way.

Ben Maccer on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 1:15 pm


I’ve told that joke loads and have always had exactly the same experience! Clearly it’s an hilarious joke, but girls don’t understand.

I’ve also found that the fairer sex don’t seem to appreciate the brilliant concept of ‘German jokes’ (which pretend not to have any sense of humour). Here’s a couple of examples:

Q: How many electricians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One.

Q: Why are there no aspirin in the jungle?
A: Because it would be financially unviable to market a pharmaceutical product in a largely unpopulated area.

Paul Evans on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 1:15 pm


I don’t get it (the orange one).

I was at the DUP conference in Belfast as an observer last week and they had a stand up comic booked for the dinner. Learned about as much as you can do about Northern Ireland’s politics from that.

Driving in Dublin looking for a shop that would sell a hammer and a nail. Stops to ask someone:

Q: “Excuse me – is there a B&Q in Dublin?”
A: “Not sure. But I know for a fact that there are two D’s in Drogheda…”

graham furey on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 1:42 pm


I love the joke!
Your opening paragraphs about the role of jokes in social discourse are very well made and, if you don’t mind, I’ll use them again.

As for a joke from me? Not in writing. It’s the way you tell ‘em that counts.

Rebeccada on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 2:03 pm


I’m sorry but this isn’t a joke. It’s silly, yes. But it’s no joke.

For the silliness I will give it a 5.

Susmita on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 2:06 pm


Love Paul Evans’ joke. The “orange” joke is about as good as this festive joke – you be the judge….

It was Christmas Eve in a supermarket and a woman was anxiously picking over the few remaining turkeys in the hope of finding one that would feed al the family.

In desperation she called over a shop assistant and said “Excuse me. Do these turkeys get any bigger?”

“No” he replied, “They’re all dead”.

Sharliza on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 2:14 pm


I second Rebecca!

The turkey one is more of a joke – thanks Susmita

Women probably just like different kinds of jokes.

John Adams on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 2:27 pm


It’s pretty good, and can just picture you telling it. Excellent sillyness quotient and I give 7 out of ten.

tom on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 2:34 pm


Not entirely sure how to rate this as I am inclined to think of this joke as terrible but at the same time it did raise a wry smile. Maybe a four?

Why did the child fall off his bike?

Somebody threw a fridge at him.

Susmita on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:02 pm


Tom, that joke is funny because of the unexpected – the orange joke is too obvious, though it may be different if delivered in person.

Simon Field on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:04 pm


My two favourite jokes, usually only appreciated by men:

Q: What did one extractor fan say to the other?
A: “I also used to love tractors!”

Q: Why did Timmy fall off the swing?
A: Because he didn’t have any arms.

(Women usually tell me off about the second one, because it’s “cruel”. And about the first because it’s not funny.)

Susmita on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:07 pm


now those are REALLY funny!

I should be careful about posting on this blog….My boss stormed up to me in the office today and said
“You missed work yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Not particularly” I replied.

James Horn on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:20 pm


I laughed at it…

8 out of 10.

Simon’s Extractor fan joke though gets a 10.



Livy on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:27 pm


The most common misconception people have about humour is that all laughter is in response to something funny. In fact most of it isn’t.

Laughter is biological reflex and communication tool, which is why primates do it with each other in large enough groups.

Have you ever noticed that the more people there are in the room, the more intense and frequent the laughter is? Often to completely lame and cringeworthy attempts at humour.

What passes for most peoples’ sense of humour is often just very obvious sarcasm, or picking each other up on anything said that may have a counter example or alternate meaning (completely lazy and devoid of irony or wit). Then extrapolating long winded scenarios, which each person in the group will add to in an attempt to ‘hijack’ the joke in an attempt to be heard. Its all about social sub-communication and status anxiety in the end.

This is why truly funny people and comedy writers are in such short supply, so highly sought after and so well paid. Because most people, especially women, simply aren’t funny. That’s why if you ask most women about the most attractive quality in a man they invariably say “a sense of humour”. Because they don’t have one, and men who can communicate well are desirable

The obvious exception to this is someone like Joan Rivers, who is funnier than 90% of male comedians combined. Before any feministas start boiling their own blood this is not prejudice. It’s no different than saying the vast majority of hip hop artists are black or Hispanic, and the vast majority of golfers are black.

It just so happens that the best rapper in the world is white, and the best golfer is black.

Alex H on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:33 pm


Male: 2

Livy on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:34 pm


Rather, most golfers are white…. Woods being the shining exception…

(MT: we should have edit and delete functions on our posts)

Will on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:45 pm


Matthew: 4
Simon: 8
Susmita: 6
Tom: 7
Ben: 1
Paul: 3

Michael (in UK) on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 4:23 pm


Matthew said “Too often jokes are an alternative to wit. Joke tellers break up and dominate conversation rather than letting it flow and develop”.

I agree. Witty, off the cuff remarks (or – jokes adapted on the fly and presented as such) are much funnier.

Here’s my favourite joke:
In a park the other day I come across a man playing chess against a small dog. Soon a small crowd built up, all of us watching in astonished silence.
Eventually someone exclaimed: “I have never seen such a thing, what a remarkable dog!”
But the man protested: “No, no, he’s not so remarkable. I’m leading by three games to one”.

How is work on the “someday, maybe” stand up comedy slot going Matthew?

philh on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 5:01 pm


I don’t get Matthew’s joke, sorry, so 1/10

By the way I got a letter from the British Origami Association today – didn’t know what to make of it.

Told my friend, he thought the Association had folded.

Livy on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 5:31 pm


…Phil, and also to Paul before. The fact that you don’t get the joke is a good thing, trust me, it means you’re not intellectual snobs (sorry MT, still love your blog and all…).

To find it funny you need to take pleasure in the fact that people less intelligent than you are scratching their heads searching for a non-existing explanation to a punch line. The fact that it isn’t really a joke is what makes it such a great joke.

It’s both hilarious and fiendishly clever.

Paul Evans on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 6:12 pm


Livy.

I did get it really. I just pretended that I didn’t to impress people

matthew taylor on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 6:35 pm


I have never enjoyed a comment thread as much as this. I have already gained five extra previously unheard brilliant jokes. You are all wonderful people. I wish you could all come to the wedding I am going to tomorrow between a car aerial and a satellite dish. The ceremony might not be much but they say the reception’s going to be fantastic.

Livy on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 6:42 pm


…. shocking.

Given that I called you an intellectual snob I doubt I’ve qualified as one of the wonderful people. So I figure I may as well finally contribute a joke I stole from the lovely miss Stephy Flanders.

What’s the only thing men and women have in common?

They both hate women.

matthew taylor on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 6:53 pm


Livy, that’s brilliant. Unfortunately, it’s probably not a joke men should be allowed to tell. Some of the very best jokes are Jewish jokes about being Jewish, but not being Jewish I feel I can’t ever really carry them off. But here’s one anyway

A man goes to confession

‘Forgive me father for I have sinned’

‘Tell me your sins, my son’

‘I am 72 years old I have been happily married for fifty years. Yesterday I flew into town. On the plane I picked up two air stewardesses. I took them back to my hotel and I made love to them all night’

‘That’s terrible. When was the last time you were at confession’

‘Never. I’m Jewish’

‘So why are you telling me this’

‘I’m telling everybody!’

Livy on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 7:01 pm


That’s actually not bad either.

A man like yourself might enjoy Jackie Mason’s youtube channel, with all his insights into the lefties and liberals.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheUltimateJew

Just suspend disbelief…

rhian on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 8:29 pm


Men have told me in the past i never get their jokes – I must admit I sometimes pretend I do if I’m feeling kind or I like them..
i actually laughed out loud, well snorted at this joke(I’m not pretending) + I’ve got the flu) so it must be funny… I’d give it a 7 or 8 maybe..
Years ago at an interview iIwas aksed to tell a joke.
The first one I thought of was:
‘whats the fastest cake in the world?’
Scone.

I think when I came out I decided that even if they offered me the job i’d be too embarrassed to see them again…

grit on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 9:37 pm


i liked the set up to the orangehead joke but wanted the end line to be witty rather than self evident, so i am possibly suffering status anxiety, thanks livy. i have a joke about a cat, but it is cruel and rude, and since i am a lady (more status anxiety) i couldn’t possibly write it down. i liked the jewish joke though. i don’t know what to make of that, being a woman with no sense of humour.

Philip on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 10:35 pm


The daughter in the story is mine, and she is ecstatic that her joke is receiving this much attention.

Phil Korbel on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 10:45 am


for the sake of your survey Matthew I tried out the confession joke on both my wife and my mother – straight 9′s! The Orange left them cold though – I gave that 7 for silliness, and a ten for the Confession [has empathy on its side!]

Judith on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 12:04 pm


You might remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s dentist converts to Judaism and Jerry accuses him of converting to have the right to tell Jewish jokes…

I liked, remembered and retold your joke about about the wide mouthed toad. Much funnier than the orange-head joke.

Livy on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 12:26 pm


Well here’s one of mine from a true story.

Still unemployed for 6 months straight, scratching a living here and there from crappy night jobs (bussing dishes etc…). I finally get a call back for a proper job interview.

My enthusiasm drained as soon as the guy asked me one of those inane, trite interview questions….I just couldn’t help myself.

Interviewer twat: So what would you say is your biggest weakness?

Livy: Single Malt Whiskey.

I’ve never seen such an unimpressed & condescending look on somebody’s face….Not even my old man when I told him I wanted to be an archaeologist.

matthewtaylor on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 1:22 pm


On my way to watch West Brom puts me in mind of the joke about the two Albion fans walking past a chemist shop. In the window is a sign saying ‘free inside West Brom season tickets’. They look at each other and one shrugs his shoulders and goes in. About ten minutes later he emerges witha carrier bag. When his friend looks in the bag there are tens of packets of condoms; fruit flavour, ribbed, talking, buzzing. ‘Why have you bought all these’ says his friend. ‘Thing was’ replied his mate ‘I was too embarrassed to ask for the tickets’

Ian Leslie on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 2:32 pm


I think that (the orange joke) is a great joke. Hadn’t heard it. Entirely conventional set-up followed by genuinely surprising “anti-joke” punchline = funny. I confess, I kind of don’t understand anyone who doesn’t like it. That’s the thing about jokes: they’re divisive.

Who was the leader of the Pedant’s Revolt?

Which Tyler.

David Whewell on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 2:36 pm


orange head – 4 out of 10. Male. Here’s one of my favourite:

Steve is an officer on a RN cruiser; partner is pregnant. Radio room receives message – “little girl, 9lbs 10ozs, mother and baby doing well; wish you were here daddy”

On the bridge, Steve receives the following note from the radio op, “little girl, 9lb 10ozs, mother and baby doing well; wish you were her daddy”

Rich Watts on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 3:49 pm


There you go, Matthew: tell a joke and everyone reads and comments on the blog!

Anyway, I’d give the orange joke 8/10 – I love literal humour and find the best way to cheer myself up if needed is to put on an episode of Police Squad or watch Naked Gun.

Here’s my joke offering, from Cold War times: Three workers find themselves locked up, and they ask each other what they’re in for. The first man says: “I was always ten minutes late to work, so I was accused of sabotage.” The second man says: “I was always ten minutes early to work, so I was accused of espionage.” The third man says: “I always got to work on time, so I was accused of having a Western watch.”

Ben Caesar on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 5:06 pm


I give the orange joke 4/10, at least on paper. It subverts the joke form of deriving the humour from waiting for the fellow’s downfall at the end but not in a way that couldn’t easily be pinioned on an infinite other setups. I say, ‘on paper’ (or blog in this case) because the set up is amusing and it really does depend on how the joke is delivered; some people, in the telling could likely make it very funny.

The bees joke though – very amusing!

emma on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 9:38 pm


Simon and Tom I have just woken the children with my very loud laughter!!! I think the “extractor fan” joke may become my all time favourite and the child falling off the bike my second, and as my name suggests I am female and so shouldn’t find them funny; but then I do love Bunny Suicides too! Thankyou

emma on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 9:46 pm


What’s brown and sticky?
A stick

Dave Gale on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 9:53 pm


Livy just made a joke:

Why do women like a man with a sense of humour?

Because women haven’t got one…!

Dan on Sat, 5th Dec 2009 10:00 pm


Two lions are walking down Oxford Street. One says to the other, ‘Isn’t it quiet for a Saturday’.

Duncan Lawie FRSA on Sun, 6th Dec 2009 10:53 am


The “orange” joke rather relies on the hearer’s knowing how these sorts of jokes are supposed to work, and the humour, for me, relies on the build-up to a conundrum which is then missing.

I laughed, and would give it a solid 8/10.

A man walks into a bar.

“Ouch” – steel bar.

matthew taylor on Sun, 6th Dec 2009 4:27 pm


An Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a nun, a dog and an Essex girl walk into a bar. ‘What do you call this? Says the barman ‘some kind of joke?’

A man walks into a bar and says to the barmaid ‘I’d like a double entendre’. ‘Shall I give you one?’ Replies the barmaid

Livy on Sun, 6th Dec 2009 4:37 pm


My Visa card was stolen two months ago but I don’t want to report it. The guy who took it is using it less than my girlfriend.

matthew taylor on Sun, 6th Dec 2009 9:37 pm


Thanks everyone for a great thread. I have noticed that the jokes (including mine) are all becoming a bit more well-trodden. As for the gender thesis I would say the evidence supports it but not strongly enough to count as proof.

fourcultures on Mon, 7th Dec 2009 1:45 pm


Matthew, you did well with the jokes you got out of your respondents. Emma’s brown and sticky joke has been a favourite for years, but it might now go into retirement in favour of the orange, or Ben’s electrician joke.
Contrast all this with a recent Times article lamenting the lack of jokes about climate change. The online comments were almost entirely devoid of humour, as was the case for a very similar Guardian article a year ago. So here’s my question: Why aren’t people telling climate change jokes?
And my favourite joke about Fatalism.
[Oh, I don't know, 7.5, male obviously]

Paul Evans on Mon, 7th Dec 2009 2:12 pm


I’ve been dying to put the best joke-by-email-round-robin that my drunken uncle has sent me in the last year (I get about 3 a day from him). It’s not clever in the way that jokes on this thread are meant to be but … what the hell:

3 men in a pub- a Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman:

‘Y’know’ said the Scotsman, ‘I still prefer the pubs back home. In Glasgow there’s a little bar called McTavish’s.

Now the landlord there goes out of his way for the locals so much that when you buy four drinks he will buy the fifth drink for you.’

‘Well,’ said the Englishman, ‘at my local, The Red Lion, the barman there will buy you your third drink after you buy the first two.’

‘Ahhhhh, that’s nothing,’ said the Irishman. ‘Back home in Dublin there’s Ryan’s Bar. Now the moment you set foot in the place they’ll buy you a drink, then another, and another again – all the drinks you like. Then when you’ve had enough drinks they’ll take you upstairs and see that you get laid. All on the house.’

The Englishman and Scotsman immediately scorn the Irishman’s claims. But he swears every word is true.

‘Well,’ asked the Englishman, ‘did this actually happen to you?’

‘Not me meself, personally, no,’ said the Irishman . . . ‘But it did happen to me sister….

Livy on Tue, 8th Dec 2009 12:02 am


…Talk about a Pandora’s Box, this thread won’t die.

Despite all my blathering I haven’t even given my personal rating on the original joke.

Or my gender.

Then again both might be a tad obvious.

Margaret Ounsley on Tue, 8th Dec 2009 12:04 pm


Of course by positing the whole thing along the lines of “women won’t find this funny” you have left us sisters all in a bit of an emporer’s new clothes type dilemma. Livy is quite right that humour is much more about social situation than anything else. Watch a group on the tube sharing a joke. If it were the case that all jokes were objectively funny then those around who hear the joke should also be laughing; they rarely are; they are not part of the group and so subject to whole different set of social pressures as those sharing the joke.
So back to the emporer’s new clothes; women can only come in to say “I found it funny” (ie please like me boys, I am one of you really) or I did not find it funny (ie you are quite right, women are po-faced humourless drones) or I found it quite funny (women are humourless, but know how to construct a put down). As it stands I thought it was an eight out of ten. To reconstruct a brilliant joke once told by the immensely funny Jeremy Beecham about yorkshiremen

Two feminists sat in a comedy club; the comedian goes down very well and one turns to the other and says “what do you think to the act then?” her friend replies, dourly “all right if you like laughing”

Jon Lawson on Tue, 8th Dec 2009 12:45 pm


The orange joke is rather good. It is funnier if you are vaguely familiar with other similar jokes which might end in a mishearing (12 inch pianist) or perhaps a pun (without taking the pith).

It is surprising, not because you don’t know what’s coming, but because you think you might, and it turns out not to be what you are expecting.

It is better than ‘duh’ (obvious) jokes, (sticky sticks etc) because the idea of someone wishing for an orange head is rather fun.

It is silly. Like a man running into a psychiatrist’s office with a fried egg on his head and saying ‘Dr, you have to help me. There’s something wrong with my sister’. Perhaps men are sillier than women.

Dave Briggs on Wed, 9th Dec 2009 1:34 pm


Did you hear about the magic tractor?

It was driving down a lane and turned into a field.

Also:

Two snowmen in a field. One says to the other, “Can you smell carrots?”

May Busch on Thu, 10th Dec 2009 6:03 pm


Interesting to note that this MT blog has gotten the most comments of any for the week, and all in such good humour (ha ha)!

A joke I just heard and thought was hilarious:

A woman suggests to her husband that she have surgery to make her breasts bigger. Her husband suggests she rub toilet paper between them as an alternative. “How would that make my breasts bigger?” she asks. “I don’t know,” he replies. “But it sure worked for your backside.”

Dish Network Milwaukee on Thu, 11th Feb 2010 7:02 pm


Ah, This is exactly what I was looking for! Dispells
a few contradictions I’ve been hearing.

"How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb"? … from Matthew Taylor's blog at the RSA « mick's leadership blog on Fri, 12th Feb 2010 9:12 am


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