Consider these two jokes:

Two Irishmen are throwing stones at the floor. Paddy misses.
Q. Why was the blonde staring at the orange juice?
A. It said "concentrate" on the bottle.
Now granted, these two jokes are not necessarily particularly good examples on the grounds that they just aren't funny. They do however illustrate a point I want to make and that is this: many jokes rely on some sort of prejudice, racial or otherwise, in order to achieve its humour. The above jokes are only even remotely funny because the reader/listener is meant to recognise that Irish people and blondes are allegedly stupid. The problem with this though, is that it is, essentially, a load of smeg.

There are several ways of trying to get around this. Firstly you can just ignore it entirely. This isn't very effective though since eventually you'll end up insulting someone. There are an awful lot of blonde people in this world.

The second method is to simply not tell this type of joke. This again is not overly satisfactory because some of these jokes (although not, I will strss, the ones quoted above) are actually quite funny.By not telling these jokes you are missing out on something.

A third approach is to just not specify who the subject of your joke is. They could end up looking something like this:

Two people are throwing stones at the floor. Alison misses.
Q. Why was the man staring at the orange juice?
A. It said "concentrate" on the bottle.
This has the advantage that you get to tell the joke without the risk of offending anyone. The problem is obvious though. It simply isn't as funny. It requires a bit of concentration and thought to work out what is actually going on in the joke. This is because you don't know imediately that the person in question is unintelligent.

You can get around this by saying that the characters in the joke are meant to be stupid:

Two stereotypical stupid people are throwing stones at the floor. Alison misses.
Q. Why was the stereotypical stupid person staring at the orange juice?
A. It said "concentrate" on the bottle.
This has the opposite problem. You are told too much. You know to expect a punchline of the nature given as soon as you hear the phrase "stereotypical stupid person". Also, it is overly long and laboured seeming Once again it just isn't as funny.

The option favoured by the group Mensa is to use the word "Densan":

Two Densans are throwing stones at the floor. One misses.
Q. Why was the Densan staring at the orange juice?
A. It said "concentrate" on the bottle.
This does of course have it's advantages. It doesn't risk offending anyoneand yet it isn't overly long winded. It also requiresapproximately the same degree of thought to jump from the phrase "A Densan" to the stereotypical stupid person as it does to get there from the phrase "A blonde", for example. As I'm sure you can guess by now though there is a problem with this too. Firstly, the word "Densan" is for me, quite ugly. I would rather not use it unless I have to. Secondly, to those who are unfamiliar with the term "Densan", the joke will be totally indecipherable. For these reasons I do not advocate this solution, although it is making progress.

The solution that I prefer though is one that should probably be credited to Andrew Wilkinson. It was something he came up with in a conversation with Matthew Westcott and myself in a maths lesson. He suggested that politicians should be used as the stereotypical stupid people of these jokes. Since there are very few politicians the risk of offending anyone is small. The joke also retains its humour value, possibly even gaining a bit:

Two members of the Labour Cabinet are throwing stones at the floor. Peter Mandelson misses.
Q. Why was the Congressman staring at the orange juice?
A. It said "concentrate" on the bottle.

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Last updated: 2000/08/15