Sunday, 24 March 2013

"And then the red-headed Scotsman said to the priest ..."

Many classic jokes involve a group of three people:
  • three residents of the British Isles, an Englshman, Irishman, and Scotsman, drinking in a pub;
  • three clergymen, a minister, a priest, and a rabbi, playing golf on Monday morning;
  • three women with different hair colouring, a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, driving down the highway.

We're never told what happened to the Welshman, Cornishman, imam, or grey-haired lady.

Even though it's a joke, the funny bits are not equally shared.  The minister, Englishman, brunette, and redhead never get the laugh lines.

Some characters are transferable from one joke to another:  the Scotsman and the rabbi, for example; or the Irishman and the blonde.

It all begs the question:  How many blonde, Irish rabbis does it take to change a light globe?  (That, by the way, is the world's first post-modernist joke.  It doesn't have a punchline, but it doesn't need one.)

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