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I like the theory that jokes are funny to the extent they enable a discovery of 'shared knowledge' between the teller and audience.

I'll provide a light bulb joke as an example...

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? A: That's not funny.



Shared beliefs, when they start complaining about things the audience relates to. Or completely obvious things we haven't noticed. A really funny monologue I saw once was a European comedian remarking how many different meanings can be carried by the word 'ass' and how often they are contradictory. Very clever observation.


For the curious, I suspect this was Ismo. I love his with on pointing out the incongruities in surface level features of English.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU




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