Gerry Lieberman. 3,500 Good Jokes For Speakers (1976)

     Gerry Lieberman. 3,500 Good Jokes For Speakers (1976) A compilation of jokes originally published in the 1950s. Categorised, a mix of one-liners, short setups, and stories, of varying quality. What’s interesting is how taste has changed: many of the jokes wouldn’t fly these days, too sexist or racist. The style of sexism and racism has changed: mostly, only women can makes jokes about women, only blacks about blacks, etc. The other interesting aspect is how topical humour is. References to the garment district of New York just don’t work as well today, for example, nor do jokes playing with good girl/bad girl contrasts.References to the Cold War are unintelligible to anyone under 30 and dated to anyone under 50. As customs and values change, so do jokes. Jokes depend on a shared cultural context between teller and audience. Much of that context has changed or disappeared in the 60-odd years since these jokes were first collected. Thus the book provides data for a study of humour, which I will not, however, undertake. **