Monday, May 9, 2011

Self-Pigeon-Holing Through Vocational In-Jokes

Here at UUJM, we love a good pun but only when it DOES NOT relate to your job.

If you are a woodwind player, you do not need to wear a t-shirt that says "bassoner the better" and point at it with a big smile on your face whilst nodding your head slightly to show you get the joke and you believe I can too if I put my mind to it. If you are a scientist and your friends are scientists, you don't need to call your pub quiz team, "Particle Physics Gives me a Hadron" and then tell the neighbouring pub quiz teams that you're all scientists, in case they don't understand how funny you are. If you're an accountant, please don't describe your work as "taxing" before looking at me expectantly, waiting for the onslaught of milk-out-the-nose laughter (and thereby reinforcing everything society thinks it knows about accountants).

Let's run through some more likely suspects. Teachers are not "all class." I don't want to hear about geographers' "cleavage." Journos, don't tell me your work is "press-ing." When cricket players don't know the answer to a question they shouldn't tell me they're "stumped." The list could go on but these things are not funny. They're tragic and they make it obvious that you have no identity outside of a small box you've put yourself in cos you don't dare to expand your horizons and thoughts. Shame, really. By using these puns you've labelled yourself by nothing but your job title. That's sad, man.

Just to prove we love a good pun, I told Shaun a joke every year for a decade. Do you know how many made him laugh?

No pun in ten did.

Yeah, well fuck you too. Don't look at me like that.

1 comment:

  1. So I met these three guys at a party. The first guy, a fireman, was smoking a joint. I asked him how he was feeling. "Blazed," he said. The next guy, an electrician, was high on P. I asked him how he was feeling about the rugby world cup. "Amped," he said. The last guy, a fisherman, was drinking Steinlager. I asked him how he felt about this joke. "Gutted," he said.

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