Title: The Extroverted Engineer Joke

General Information about Item:

• Genre and Sub Genre: Verbal Folklore: Joke

• Language: English

• Country where Item is from: United States

Informant Data:

• Fletcher Lent is a Junior (Class of 2019) at Dartmouth College who is completing a Bachelors of Arts in Computer Science. He has had an interest in computer science since taking an introductory course in high school. Fletcher enjoys working on coding projects for his computer sciences classes and occasionally has his own mini projects. I interviewed Fletcher in the library on 10/4/17.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context/Cultural Context: This joke is based on society’s perception of a typical engineer’s social capabilities. Engineers are commonly perceived as serious individuals who have strong technical skills yet lack social skills as a result. Staring at your own shoes when having a conversation is indicative of shyness.
• If the joke is told by a non-engineer then its purpose is to make fun of engineers and their social abilities. Another point of view is if this joke is told by an engineer then it is humor found in self-deprecation.

Item:

• Unlike many jokes pertaining to engineers this joke has no technical aspect to it. The item is based entirely on the social/cultural context of the joke. Although the engineer is supposed to be extroverted he still stares at shoes when talking.
• The joke follows the classic form of a “how can you tell an __________?” where the blank can be filled with any sort of subject then the following line is a descriptor of the subject usually rooted in some sort of associated stereotype.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

• Fletcher telling the joke with some commentary

Transcript of Joke:

How can you tell an extroverted engineer?

He looks are your shoes rather than his own when talking to you.

Informant’s Comments:

• Fletcher said that he heard this joke in his CS1 course.
• He explained that this joke has to do with engineers generally being described as more introverted/shy individuals. Although, he did not agree with the stereotype based on the engineers that he knew.
• He admitted to making fun of engineers because he thought computer scientists are “better” than them.

Collector’s Comments:

• This joke is entirely based on the stereotypes that follow engineers. The “funny” part of the joke is the fact that although the engineer is extroverted they are still looking down at the shoes of whoever they are talking to as opposed to making direct eye contact.
• This is a very dry self-deprecating sort of humor commonly found in STEM. An interesting observation for this joke is that it can be applied to the different people that occupy STEM majors by simply changing the subject from engineer to computer scientist, mathematician, biologist, etc.

Collector’s Name: Marwan Zelmat

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore, Joke

Title:  A Carton of Milk and Eggs Joke

General Information about Item:

• Genre and Sub Genre: Verbal Folklore: Joke

• Language: English

• Country where Item is from: United States

Informant Data:

• Maximilian Wieland is is a Senior (Class of 2017) at Dartmouth College who is completing his Economics and History double major with a minor in computer science. He decided late in his Dartmouth career to pursue a computer science minor as he became interested after taking an introductory course. As he is not a computer science major it was interesting to see his take on the humor in this field of study.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context/Cultural Context: This joke plays on knowledge of the commonly used “IF” statements in most programming languages. This sort of statement depends on the input of an initial function then if that input is met, a predetermined outcome is returned. “IF” statements are one of the most basic coding tools that most learn in introductory courses. Jokes like this are often told between computer science students or those in academia as it requires a basic understanding of how syntax works in code. As a result jokes are formed around how such a sentence structure can lead one to take statements too literally as a computer would.

Item:

• This item is a very technical joke that requires basic knowledge of “IF” statement and to be able to identify it in an interaction between two individuals. Typically in the form of a request, which acts as the initial condition, followed by an “IF” serving as a conditional statement, then followed by a secondary request. The joke works best if the secondary request is a numerical value of sorts that has no relation to the first request because if a relationship is specified then the act of confusion is canceled out.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

• Max telling the joke with some commentary

Transcript of Joke:

A wife says to her husband, a computer scientist:

“Could you please go to the market and buy a carton of milk and if they have eggs please buy 6”

So the husband goes to the supermarket and comes back with 6 cartons of milk

When she sees that the wife asks: “Why did you do that?”

And the husband replies: “Well they had eggs.”

Informant’s Comments:

• Max said he heard this joke when first learning about “IF” statements in one of his first computer science classes.
• Commented on the general personalities of computer scientists saying that like the “IF” statement many are very literal individuals who have trouble with social queues and take things very mechanically.

Collector’s Comments:

• This joke is a very simple, yet slightly technical joke. It’s a terrible joke that is so bad that it’s only funny because it is so bad. It really requires good delivery with the ending stressed for it to illicit even a simple “ha-ha.” The audience is also very targeted at individuals who will understand the joke or else it would be interpreted as if the husband had just misunderstood what his wife wanted and the recipient of the joke would not find it funny.

Collector’s Name: Marwan Zelmat

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore, Joke