Thursday, August 31, 2017

EXPLANATIONS TO 28 JOKES ONLY SMART PEOPLE CAN UNDERSTAND: PART IV


22. Pretentious? Moi?

Why it’s funny: Only a pretentious person whose daily life doesn’t require French would actually say “moi” and mean it.


23. Two women walk into a bar and talk about the Bechdel test.



Why it’s funny: The Bechdel test is a measure of gender equality in the media. A piece of media is considered to pass the test if it includes at least two women who talk to each other about something besides men. This joke passes the test.


24. Heisenberg was speeding down the highway. A cop pulls him over and says “Do you have any idea how fast you were going back there?” Heisenberg says, “No, but I knew where I was.”



Why it’s funny: Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist and one of the key figures in quantum theory. His famous “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal” states that we can know either where a quantum particle is or how fast it’s moving, but it’s impossible to know both at the same time.


25. C, E♭, and G walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, no minors.”

Why it’s funny: C, E♭, and G are the musical notes that constitute a C minor chord.


26. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.



Why it’s funny: You were expecting the word “problem,” but the joke-teller replaced it with “precipitate,” which is the solid that forms in a solution of liquid after a chemical reaction has taken place.


27. A linguistics professor says during a lecture that, “In English, a double negative forms a positive. But in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, in no language in the world can a double positive form a negative.” But then a voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”

Why it’s funny: “Yeah” and “right” are technically affirmative words, but put these two positives together and you get an ultra-sarcastic, “Yeah, right.”


28. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A fish.



Why it’s funny: Surrealism is an movement all about creating weird illogical art. As this joke makes no sense, it is itself a surrealist work.

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