The peculiar genius of lightbulb jokes seems to me to be the tongue-in-
cheek undermining of the stereotype each joke uses to make a joke in
the first place. I don't know how it came about that this level of irony
became implicit in the form, but it seems to be the only joke form around
that is allowed to use what would be otherwise offensive stereotypes.
How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?
None: "I'll just sit here, alone, in the dark ..."
Many, though, are predicated upon professions, like the hardware
engineer/software problem one, not on mere ethnicity, though, and I
think it is the propensity for skewering the attitudes of volitional
occupations, as well as non-volitional groups, that lets this joke form,
and its tellers, get away with stereotyping that in another form would be
taken as offensive.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?
One: but the lightbulb has got to really want to change.
How many union electricians does it take to change a lightbulb.
Seventeen. You gotta problem wit' dat?
Marcus
On 30 Jul 2005 at 0:29, Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Ever hear the California version?
>
> Q: How many Californians . . .
>
> A: Seventeen. One to change the bulb and sixteen to
> share the experience.
>
> Hal
>
> On Jul 30, 2005, at 12:20 AM, Roger Collett wrote:
>
> > Looking back, a long way back, the version I first heard was:
> >
> > Q: How many Irishmen does it take to change a light bulb?
> > A: 101, one to hold the bulb and a hundred to turn the house.
> >
> > Btw, when I was in Saudi Arabia the common British jokes about the
> > Irish seemed to be extant as Saudi jokes about the Yemenis (the
> > Arabian equivalent of navvies who did most of the construction
> > labouring)
> >
> > Roger Collett
> > Arrowhead Press
> > http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------
> > "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."
> > Jules de Gaultier
> >
> >
> Hal Serving the tristate area.
>
> Halvard Johnson
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/
>
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