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 not meant to be taken seriously. It takes the form of a story, usually with dialogue, and ends in a punch line. It is in the punch line that the audience becomes aware that the story contains a second, conflicting meaning. This can be done using a pun or other word play such as irony or sarcasm, a logical incompatibility, nonsense, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:
A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates in the final sentence, called the punchline… In fact, the main condition is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end. No continuation relieving the tension should be added. As for its being "oral," it is true that jokes may appear printed, but when further transferred, there is no obligation to reproduce the text verbatim, as in the case of poetry.
A limerick is a form of verse, usually humorous and frequently rude, in five-line, predominantly meter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme. The following example is a limerick of unknown origin:
Sixty-nine or 69, also known by its French name soixante-neuf (69), is a group of sex positions in which two people align themselves so that each person's mouth is near the other's genitals, each simultaneously performing oral sex on the other. The participants are thus mutually inverted like the numerals 6 and 9 in the number 69, hence the name. This position can involve any combination of sexes.
Ribaldry, or blue comedy, is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to gross indecency. It is also referred to as "bawdiness" or "bawdy".
"The Aristocrats" is a taboo-defying off-color joke that has been told by numerous stand-up comedians since the vaudeville era. The joke was the subject of a 2005 documentary film of the same name. It received publicity when it was used by Gilbert Gottfried during the Friars' Club roast of Hugh Hefner in September 2001.
Off-color humor or off-colour humour is humor that deals with topics that may be considered to be in poor taste or overly vulgar. Many comedic genres can incorporate vulgar elements.
Gershon Legman was an American cultural critic and folklorist, best known for his books The Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1968) and The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography (1964).
Geoffrey Kloske is the vice president and publisher of Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Group. He served as vice president and executive editor of Simon & Schuster from 1998-2006. Previously, he was an editor at Little, Brown and Company from 1992-1996. He has edited authors such as David Sedaris, Dave Eggers, Bob Dylan, Sarah Vowell, Jon Ronson, Nick Hornby, James McBride (writer), and Mark Kurlansky.
Make love, not war is an anti-war slogan commonly associated with the American counterculture of the 1960s. It was used primarily by those who were opposed to the Vietnam War, but has been invoked in other anti-war contexts since, around the world. The "Make love" part of the slogan often referred to the practice of free love that was growing among the American youth who denounced marriage as a tool for those who supported war and favored the traditional capitalist culture.
Meat Is Murder: An Illustrated Guide To Cannibal Culture is a book originally published in 1998, which examines cannibalism in myth, true crime, and film.
Cunnilingus is an oral sex act performed by a person on the vulva or vagina of another person. The clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of the human female genitalia, and its stimulation may result in a woman becoming sexually aroused or achieving orgasm.
Mikita Brottman is a British American non-fiction author, scholar, and psychologist known for her interest in true crime. Her writing blends a number genres, often incorporating elements of autobiography, psychoanalysis, forensic psychology, and literary history.
Oragenitalism is a book by the American folklorist Gershon Legman, published by the Julian Press in 1969. The book describes various types of oral sex. The book is intended as "instruction manual, conduct guide, and household advice book". The author claimed that it was the earliest book of its kind on the subject, and for a long time the only one. Its contents are divided into four sections: "Cunnilinctus" written under the pen-name Roger-Maxe de la Glannege and published by Jacob Brussel of New York in 1940; the three remaining sections "Fellatio", "Irrumation", and "Sixty-Nine" were not published until 1969.
Jacob R. Brussel was an antiquarian bookseller and publisher in New York City whose firm J.R. Brussel also dealt in erotica. For many years Jake Brussel operated a shop, under various names including Atlantis and Ortelius, on New York's famous Fourth Avenue "Book Row", initially in partnership with Samuel Weiser as "Weiser's Book Shop" until Weiser moved out to open his own shop across the street. He published large numbers of erotic and sexological reprints of works in the public domain in small editions, employing a job printer in a cellar around the corner, as well as the unauthorized bootleg "Medvsa" edition of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller and Oragenitalism by Gershon Legman, a young employee in the Brussel bookshop. Others who worked in the shop in this era included Sol M. Malkin,, Keene Wallis, and Mahlon Blaine. In June 1928 Sol Malkin, then a 19-year old clerk, was arrested in a police raid on the premises led by John Sumner, in which 1500 books were seized. At that time the store was called the Ortelius Book Shop and was located at 134 E. 8th St., across the street from Wanamakers. The shop's book scout was Jake's brother I.R. “Ike” Brussel, a legendary book hunter billed as "the last of the great scouts". In early 1940 the shop was raided by police and Brussel was sentenced to three years in jail on obscenity charges. After the war he carried on the storefront business while focusing largely on publishing under various imprints, including Brussel and Brussel, New York Medical Press, and United Book Guild.
The farmer's daughter is a term for a stock character and stereotype in fiction for the daughter of a farmer, who is often portrayed as a desirable and naïve young woman. She is described as being an "open-air type" and "public-spirited", who will tend to marry a hero and settle down.
Rita Renoir was a French strip-teaser and actress.
Jest books are collections of jokes and humorous anecdotes in book form - a literary genre which reached its greatest importance in the early modern period.
Sex to Sexty was a sexually-oriented humor magazine published in Arlington, Texas by John W. Newbern, Jr. and Peggy Rodebaugh, with art direction by Lowell Davis ), under the respective pseudonyms of Richard or Dick Rodman, Goose Reardon, and Pierre Davis.
Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes is the debut full-length nonfiction book written by American philosopher Jim Holt. The book was initially published on 17 July 2008 by W. W. Norton & Company. The text attempts to analyze the history, nature, and philosophical motivation of the joke from the ancient Athens stand-up comics to the today's comedy-club performers, discussing such forms of jokes as racial, political, and sexual humor. The book is based on his 2004 article for The New Yorker.
