Item:

 

“Why do programmers always mix up Christmas and Halloween?”

“Because Oct31 == Dec25”

 

 

• Oral Folklore: Joke
• English
• USA
• Collector: Jonah Deykin

 

Informant Data:

 

Brian Keare is a Computer Science major in the Dartmouth class of 2018.  He is from Menlo Park California.

 

Contextual Data:

 

Social Context:

The informant heard this joke in algorithms class at Dartmouth.  It was told to him by a professor.  It is a joke that would only be understood by programmers, hence building a sense of community

 

Cultural Context:

The Joke plays on the commonly used programming shorthand for different base counting systems.  Oct is the Octal base system and Dec is the Decimal Base system.  31 in octal is 25 in decimal.

 

Item:

            Brian Keare interview

Associated File:

Informants Comments:

 

The informant noted that the joke relies on the fact that Oct and Dec can refer either to months or in a computer science context, base systems of counting.

 

Collectors Comments:

 

The joke is very specific to computer scientists and would not be understood by others.

 

Collectors Name:

Jonah Deykin