A father exhorting his son to rise early in the morning reminded him of the old adage ‘It’s the early bird that picks up the worm.’ ‘Ah,’ replied the son, ‘but the worm gets up earlier than the bird.’
— The Book of Humour: Wit & Wisdom, 1867
Humor
O Canada
Two matrons were taking a train across Canada in the 1940s. The country was beautiful but vast, and eventually they lost track of their location.
The train pulled into a station, and one of the women saw a man on the platform.
“Pardon me, young man,” she said. “Can you tell me what town this is?”
The man tipped his hat and said, “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.”
The woman turned to her friend and said, “Isn’t that charming? They don’t speak English!”
Retrieval Error
An English professor was training her students in memorization techniques.
“For instance,” she said, “if you want to remember the name of a certain poet, Bobbie Burns, you could visualize a London policeman in flames.” She drew a picture in chalk. “You see? ‘Bobbie Burns.'”
A student raised his hand and asked, “How could we know that’s not ‘Robert Browning’?”
Applied Math
Three men went into a diner, and each ordered a cup of coffee. The waitress brought the three cups of coffee and a dish with twelve lumps of sugar. Each man took an odd number of lumps of sugar, and when they had finished, there was no sugar left. How many lumps did each man take?
It requires only a few moments to recognize that the sum of three odd numbers must be odd itself. So there must be a trick somewhere, and there is.
The first man took one lump, the second man took one lump, and the third man took ten lumps. “Aha!” you will cry, “ten is not an odd number!” And then, we slyly inquire, “Do you know anyone who takes ten lumps of sugar in his coffee?”
— M.H. Greenblatt, Mathematical Entertainments, 1965
“A Good Bargain”
A story is told of Sheridan, himself an Irishman, that one day, when coming back from shooting with an empty bag, he did not like to go home completely empty, and seeing a number of ducks in a pond, and a man or farmer leaning on a rail watching them, Sheridan said, ‘What will you take for a shot at the ducks?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I will take half a sovereign.’
‘Done!’ said Sheridan, and he fired into middle of the flock, killing a dozen. ‘I am afraid you made a bad bargain!’
‘I don’t know,’ said the man: ‘they weren’t mine.’
— Tit-Bits From All the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Newspapers in the World, Oct. 29, 1881
“The Young Man From Pall Mall”
There was a young man from Pall Mall
Who went to a fancy dress ball.
Just for the fun
He dressed up as a bun;
And was eat by a dog in the hall.
— Anonymous, in A.C. McClurg, The Humbler Poets, 1910
Next Stop
A woman proceeding by the elevated railroad, by the side of the Niagara Falls, asked the engine-driver, ‘If the rope broke, where she would go to?’ The driver told her that ‘If one broke they would have the other one to hold them.’ The woman then said, ‘Well, driver, if that broke, where should I go to?’ ‘Well,’ said the driver, ‘it just depends upon what sort of a life you have led.’
— Tit-Bits From All the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Newspapers in the World, Dec. 3, 1881
Rimshot
A biologist, a statistician, and a mathematician are sitting at a cafe. Across the street, a man and a woman enter a building; ten minutes later, they emerge with a child.
“They’ve reproduced,” says the biologist.
“No,” says the statistician. “It’s an observational error. On average, 2.5 people went each way.”
“You’re both wrong,” says the mathematician. “The conclusion is obvious. If someone goes in now, the building will be empty.”
Market Play
Barnum used to bring consternation into the hearts of his grocers by complaining that their pepper was half peas. When they protested, he would quietly ask, ‘How do you spell pepper?’ and the catch stood revealed.
— William Shepard Walsh, Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1892
“A Satisfactory Explanation”
One of the curiosities some time since shown at a public exhibition, professed to be a skull of Oliver Cromwell. A gentleman present observed that it could not be Cromwell’s, as he had a very large head, and this was a small skull. ‘Oh, I know all that,’ said the exhibitor, undisturbed, ‘but, you see, this was his skull when he was a boy.’
— Ainsworth Rand Spofford et al., The Library of Wit and Humor, Prose and Poetry, 1894