This was originally presented as a 2 minute tutorial 9/2/99
Tonight I'm going to talk to you about how to tell a joke. First, we need a definition:
A joke is a short story with a humorous climax.The thing about that definition is that every word is significant. But what I think is the most important word in it is 'Short'. I've actually made a hobby of "pruning jokes," Trying to remove unnecessary words from a joke to improve it. ...
So these two politicians come out and discover they've locked their keys in the car. The first one says "I guess we'll have to do the old coat hanger trick <sigh>"
"Do you know how to do the coat hanger trick" asks the second?
"Well, we could crawl in through the open window" offers the first.
"But if we do that" the second objects "People will think we're too stupid to do the coat hanger trick."
"Well we'd better do something!" says the first " because it looks like rain and the top's down!"