# Jokes that require a lot of specific knowledge, and probably won't be funny to very many people **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 15, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423 "2011-09-15T18:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/121 "2011-12-06T03:26:02Z")
I may have to annoy all my friends by telling them this. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/122 "2011-12-06T03:39:23Z")
> [@WmJames](#): > > I heard David Mamet tell this one at a talk he gave: > > Two sirenians come to a rabbi, and tell him they want to create a new prayer service. > > The rabbi says, Dugongs don’t make a rite. On a tangent: A well-dressed couple are coming out of the theater when a ragged guy comes up and says, “Excuse me, can you spare any change?” The gentleman looks down his nose and primly says, “‘Never a borrower nor a lender be.’ -William Shakespeare.” The bum looks at him and says, “‘Fuck you, you fuckin fuck!’ -David Mamet.” ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/123 "2011-12-06T03:42:47Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > WTF. I just googled “mayim bialik neuroscience Erdős–Bacon number” and I turned up a hit on what I just posted 5 minutes ago. Congratulations! You just pushed out the edges of the internet a little! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/124 "2011-12-06T04:20:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > On a tangent: > > A well-dressed couple are coming out of the theater when a ragged guy comes up and says, “Excuse me, can you spare any change?” > > The gentleman looks down his nose and primly says, “‘Never a borrower nor a lender be.’ -William Shakespeare.” > > The bum looks at him and says, “‘Fuck you, you fuckin fuck!’ -David Mamet.” That reminds me, I do know a geeky Shakespeare joke. Given the Bard’s fondness for very bad puns, I think he’d approve. On his way home to Milan, Prospero decides to take a detour to England to visit his old friends, the Earl of Warwick and Lady Anne. They have a wonderful time until the last day of his visit, when they go out for a walk and two giant eagles swoop down from the sky. They seize Warwick and Anne in their talons and tear them to bits. “Alas!” cries Prospero. “Our Nevilles now are rended!” ---
**Author:** ![Hilary\_Algar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilary_algar/32/4282_2.png) [@Hilary\_Algar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilary_Algar)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/125 "2011-12-06T09:21:17Z")
May have seen this one on the SDMB first: An out-of-town man with a taste for fish hops into a cab while visiting Cambridge, Massachusetts, asking the cab driver “Where can a man get skrod in this town?” The cabbie, a Harvard grad with a PhD in English Grammar responds: “I’ve been asked that question many times in many ways, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/126 "2011-12-07T08:46:57Z")
Here’s one I made up myself, just in time to tell in a Calculus class when we were studying analytic geometry: What do you call the rendition of Euclid into English? Translation of Axioms And when we studied finding centroids of odd-shaped regions, I thought up this to write on the chapter exam: When a thug breaks out of jail, where does he go? On the lamina ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/127 "2011-12-07T09:05:01Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > A philosopher, a psychiatrist, and a priest stare down at the utter carnage of a plane wreck. The philosopher muses “this can’t be ‘the best of all possible worlds’”. The psychiatrist concludes “the pilot must have been insane”. The priest affirms that “this proves God is always in control”. > > All three were looking at the bumper sticker at the end of the plane: > > God is my co-pilot. For me as an atheist, that was already funny when you left out the last part. It’s the word “affirm” that does it. 🙂 A philosopher, a psychiatrist, and a priest stare down at the utter carnage of a plane wreck. The philosopher muses “this can’t be ‘the best of all possible worlds’”. The psychiatrist concludes “the pilot must have been insane”. The priest affirms that “this proves God is always in control”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423.md?page=6)