Then There's the One About....

I don't know of any formal government-funded studies done on this, but most people cannot tell a joke. Ignoring the first principle of creative expression, communicate the maximum of information with a minimum of "strokes," they load up their stories with a landslide of detail in the hope of being interesting and only succeed in becoming a big yawn. One of my favorite people is an actress who admits to being a lousy joke-teller, the kind that always bungles the punch line. She once had an audition where she was asked by the director to tell a joke. "Stop me," she began, "if I've heard this one." In one of my early childhood attempts to tell a joke, I repeated one I'd heard my mother tell: "What is honeymoon salad? Lettuce alone with very little dressing." In my version the answer became "mayonaisse."