A man gets out of prison after four years, and his wife and kids pick him up at the gate. He gets in the car and says, "F.F." His wife responds with "E.F." The man says, "F.F." Again the wife says, "E.F!" This goes on for about five minutes before the kids speak up and ask, "What the hell are you guys talking about?" The man says, "Your mum wants to eat first." (I had to read this one a couple times):eek:
A man flies into Boston and gets into a cab. He says to the cabbie, "please take me somewhere I can get scrod." The cabbie says "Wow, that's the first time I've ever been asked that in the first person pluperfect subjunctive!"
No one on ET wrote this joke. As a matter of fact, no one on ET can understand this joke. I will be searching Half.com for "The Yalie Jokebook". "Two metaphysical scientists walk into a bar............."
"Oh, I've got the most wonderful new boyfriend. He takes me up to Boston to get scrod." Her friend says, "Dearie, you don't need to go to Boston to get scrod."
I hear ya. I've been on ggogle have th nite asking around "what's da joke"./ pluperfect subjunctive wtfis dat I'll get to the bottom of this........
Within the world of the joke, scrod is a past participle in a passive construction, pure and simple. (woooo...) It's not often I hear the past participle would be completely lacking in humor because the past participle is used all the time. The same would be true if you used passive in the joke. That is why the joke has to mention some purely fictitious or fantasy tense that sounds complicated (whether such a tense actually exists or not). Therefore, from the point of view of the "tense" to use in the punch line, there is no correct way to tell the joke. Make up your own "tense" as you choose, preferably something which just "sounds funny". Apparently the consensus is that "pluperfect"* is an inherently funny word! *The 'real pluperfect' in the context of the joke is "had scrod". Thanks to some guy named CJ