Funny is in the ear of the beholder

Published 3:31 am Thursday, May 24, 2007

Why are pirates so mean?

I don’t know; they just ARRRR.

Pirates, like elephants and jaywalking chickens, can boast ownership of entire chapters in grade school joke books.

Why couldn’t the little kid go to the pirate movie? Because it was rated “ARRRR.”

Unfortunately, with a simple formula, it’s far too easy to abuse the gag. PirateJokes.net lists hundreds of “ARRRR” jokes; the majority of them go like this: What’s a pirate’s favorite food? MacARRRoni and cheese.

Come on, people. The punch line has to at least contain the “arrr” sound. “Macaroni” uses an unstressed schwa in the second syllable … oh, never mind.

It takes a good ear and an advanced understanding of language to write a good joke. I can remember being several months into my exchange year in Swedish Finland before I was able to make up a pun in my non-native tongue – and that was a proud day, let me tell you.

Where do software pirates keep their plunder? On a CD-ARRR.

Of course, funny is in the ear of the beholder. I get a kick out of musician jokes (How do you get a trombone player off your porch? Pay him for the pizza) and the occasional non-sequitur (How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? A fish!), but the classic “guy walks into a bar” setups are great if told right. (Ask me about the one with the octopus and the bagpipe sometime.)

So two pirate ships were crossing the ocean. One had a hold full of blue paint, and the other carried a cargo of red paint. In a violent storm, they crashed into each other, and all the sailors were marooned.

Arrrgh.