Exact Words / Jokes

• Imagine you're on a boat. You're out to sea, and everything is going well. But then some sharks attack you. They slam into the boat, and you fall overboard. The sharks circle you, ready to eat you alive. How do you survive this situation? Stop imagining!
• A riddle you may have heard in elementary school: "Can you stick out your tongue and touch your nose/forehead/ear?" (Yes. The wording doesn't specify you need to touch your nose/forehead/ear with your tongue.)
• Can you make 35 cents with only two coins, one of which isn't a quarter? (Yes: the other one is.)
• Can you jump higher than a house? (Yes; a house can't jump.)
• Can you stand on one finger? (Sure: just stick out one of your fingers, put it on the ground, and stand on top of it with your foot.)
• An old Russian joke/urban legend: Rabinovich the cynical old Jew applies to the Soviet government for permission to emigrate to Israel.
  MVD Official: You say you have no relatives abroad, but that you also have a brother in Israel?
  Rabinovich: Yes, but I am abroad, he is at home!
• A very rich man dies, and demands that he be buried with his entire fortune (9,450,356 dollars and 39 cents). On the day of the funeral, people are surprised to see the normal-sized coffin, and demand an explanation from the widow. She replies that his last wishes were obeyed: His coffin contains a check for 9,450,356 dollars and 39 cents.
  • There's a variation where the man gives his doctor, his minister and his lawyer each the same amount and asks them to toss it in his grave. At the funeral all three toss envelopes in his grave. The minister admits to the other two he used part to pay for a new roof for the church, the doctor admits he used some to buy an X-Ray for the hospital, while the lawyer says he is ashamed of both of them, as he followed the instructions and put a check for the full amount in the envelope.
  • It should be noted that Artistic License – Law is in effect here: A check merely certifies its bearer's right to receive a certain amount of money from a designated bank account. The money doesn't even become his property until after he submits it to the bank.
• This joke:
  Dad: Son, I told you not to eat the cookies before dinner.
  Son: I didn't touch one of them, Dad.
  Dad: But there's only one left.
  Son: That's the one I didn't touch.
• One joke has someone boasting that they can lift an elephant with one hand. When challenged, the boaster replies, "Well, find me an elephant with one hand and I'll lift it!"
• Another joke has a man boasting that he could "carry a mountain across the town on his back". When challenged, he asks for the mountain to be placed on his back, because he only said he could carry the mountain, not lift it himself.
• Yet another joke has a man boasting that he could "drink all the water in the river". When challenged, he promptly takes water in a glass, walks into the river, and drinks the glass of water, thus drinking all the water in the river.
• A man is reading the classifieds (or Craigslist, depending on when the joke is set) and sees a notice announcing an almost brand-new Porsche on sale for twenty dollars. Thinking it's a trick, he goes to the address in the ad—a large mansion—and meets a wealthy middle-aged woman who takes him to the garage, where the newest model of Porsche is waiting. The man goes for a test drive, and finds that the car works perfectly. When he gets back, he takes a twenty from his wallet and hands it to the woman, but he can't resist asking why she's selling such an expensive car so cheap. The rich woman explains that her husband recently ran off with his secretary, and sent her a message from Europe telling her to "sell the Porsche and send me the money"—and thus neglecting to tell her how much to charge for the Porsche.
• A man tells a new acquaintance how he divorced his wife because she was having an affair with a man who worked as a Disneyland mascot.
  Old Friend: I thought you divorced her because she was crazy.
  Divorcee: I didn't say she was crazy, I said she was fucking Goofy!
  • Another version of the joke has the same punchline, but Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are the ones getting the divorce. The judge says, "I'm sorry, Mickey, but I can't grant you a divorce on the grounds that Minnie is mentally insane..."
• One day, a cop pulls a van over, and when he walks up to the window, he sees ten penguins in the back. The cop asks the man, "Are those your penguins?" The man says, "Yes, they are mine." The cop says, "You need to take them to the zoo right now." So the man agrees and drives off. The next day, the cop pulls over the same van, walks up to the window, and sees the ten penguins again. The cop says to the man, "Hey, I thought I told you to take those penguins to the zoo." The man says, "I did! Today we're going to the movies!"
• The "no prepositions at Harvard" joke:
  Visitor: Could you please tell me where the Harvard Library is at?
  Professor: At Harvard, we do not end a sentence with a preposition.
  Visitor: Could you please tell me where the Harvard Library is at, asshole?
• Canadian government offices are required to offer service in both English and French. Brent Butt (of Corner Gas fame) had a joke about this in his stand-up comedy act; he claimed to enjoy visiting government offices, asking for service in French, and then repeatedly interrupting the French-speaking employees with a confused, "What?" After all, he had only asked for service in French; he never claimed to speak or understand French himself.
• John Mulaney:
  • Both of Mulaney's parents are lawyers and he has quite a few bits about how this made him and his siblings learn how to say things exactly the right way to get anywhere with them. One time they were on a road trip and all four of the kids were getting rowdy because they were hungry. Mr. Mulaney didn’t want to stop because they were almost there. They saw a McDonald's and started chanting “McDonald’s!" over and over. He obliged, but only ordered one black coffee for himself and drove off—after all, he agreed to stop, not get them anything, especially because they didn’t actually ask for food. John admits it was Actually Pretty Funny.
  • One routine from the special Kid Gorgeous has John explain that unlike some comedians, he would never make jokes about how his wife is a bitch and he hates her. He then goes on to say "My wife is a bitch, and I like her so much!"
• A warship enters the harbor of a Deep South town. A local aristocratic woman writes a letter to the captain, requesting to send her a dozen well-behaved men for a ball she's throwing for the young ladies in her boarding house. But no Jews. At the appointed hour, she opens the door and sees a dozen Black guys in uniform. The shocked woman says, "There must be some mistake!" One of the sailors replies, "Madam, Captain Rabinowitz is never mistaken."
• A semi-practical one that you can play upon your friends:
  You: I can do math really fast.
  Them: Okay, what's [math question]?
  You: [give any answer]
  Them: That's not the right answer...
  You: I said I was fast. I didn't say I would be correct.
• Similarly, a "magic trick" (note the quotes) you can do to your friends is to claim to be a mind reader, and when they call your bluff, bet them $5 that if they think of something you can write what they're thinking of on a sheet of paper. Then write the phrase "what they're thinking of" on the sheet of paper and show it to them. More often than not they'll find it funny enough to pay up.
• A drunk man in a bar yells out, "I'll bet anyone in the house I can bite my own eye!" When one of the other customers takes him up on it, the man takes out his glass eye and bites it. Then he shouts, "I'll bet anyone in the house I can bite my other eye!" The same guy as before takes him up on it, certain he can't have two glass eyes. The drunk removes his false teeth and gently clamps them over his other eye.
• A father knocks on the door to his daughter's room, asking what she's doing in there. She replies "nothing"/"stuff", and all seems to be well... then in walks the daughter's Sex Dressed beau, who is immediately introduced (either by the daughter or the beau) as "nothing"/"stuff". Some take the joke further by having the dad note that the person clearly isn't the weaselled phrase, but if the hapless beau doesn't leave they will be in a second.
• Two friends, one fat and one thin, have a conversation:
  Fat Friend: I'll have you know that I'm in perfect shape!
  Thin Friend: You're round.
  Fat Friend: And round is a shape!
• Mexican comedian Franco Escamilla had a monologue about how his son got in a fight at school (and won!). His wife was angry and grounded the kid with a month without Nintendo. Later on dad went to him and told him to not worry, because mom told him "no Nintendo", but the kid has an Xbox.
• "See that table and chair (or other large objects) over there? I bet you I can take my shoes off and jump over them." After the others take him up on his bet, since the obstacles are way too high/wide for anyone other than a circus acrobat to safely leap across, he takes off his shoes... and jumps right over said footwear.
• A lawyer gets upset with a judge for overruling his objection, so he asks what would happen if he called the judge an idiot. The judge replies that he would have to hold the lawyer in contempt. The lawyer responds "Well, what if I just thought it?" The judge agrees that there would be nothing he could do about it. The lawyer answers "For the record, Your Honor, I think you're an idiot."
• The answer to the following riddle partly depends on this: "Which weighs more? All the trains that pass through Grand Central in a day or all the trees cut down to print U.S. currency? U.S. Currency is printed on linen, so no trees are cut down. Simple enough. But Grand Central? It's a terminal. No trains pass through it.
• A bag on a table contains a certain number of peaches. Alice comes along and reaches in for a snack—she takes no peaches from the bag and leaves no peaches in the bag. How many peaches were originally inside? Two. The answer relies on the exact wording of Alice taking and leaving no peaches—she took one, meaning she removed a peach and left a peach.

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