Here in Canada, and especially in Quebec, we have a sad tradition of ‘newfie’ jokes. (“Newfies” is a derogotary term for the people of Newfoundland, the last province to join confederation). They’re asinine jokes, e.g.:
Q: How did the newfie break his foot while tap dancing?
A: He fell in the sink.
I was wondering if Americans (or any other nationality, for that matter), have, for joke purposes, a ‘newfie’ equivalent? Or is the-stupid-dude always some other nationality, or non-white ethnic group/race?
I noticed that many of these newfie jokes have, of late, been recast as dumb blonde jokes, and I don’t think it’s much of an improvement (I should do a search and see if there’s a thread that’s tackled the subject).
It’d be nice if these jokes featured a long-extinct group of people, say the Etruscans. Not too many Etruscans around to take offence
Or how about a totally mythical entity, like the cyclops?
Hey, I’ve even thought of a few good cyclops jokes.
Q: What do you call a cyclops with a monocle?
A: (in a mocking tone) “Hey! Two eyes!”
I’m Canadian, but I commute to the U.S. every day for work. Believe it or not, this subject came up, and in order to explain what “newfie” jokes are, I said, “You know, like Polack jokes, only we say newfie.”
While I normally dislike Political Correctness, I also don’t really like offending anybody too much. (I’m one of those polite Canadians, eh?) So I second your vote for a mythical or extinct group. How about dinosaurs? Ogres?
In southern Ohio, our equivalent of newfies was Kentuckians. Growing up we told “how many Kentuckians” or “did you hear about the Kentuckian who” jokes. (One of my brothers moved to KY about a year ago, so my siblings and I are now able to ridicule him personally.) I’ve occasionally heard others from other states tell jokes about residents of their neighboring states (including during the time I lived out West), so the answer to your question is, in the US the general stupid-dude is likely to be a resident of whatever state is looked upon in your region as the most backward, ignorant, inbred, and/or redneck.
Which gives me the right to tell a joke (I hope I didn’t hear it here first):
Q: Why can’t North Dakotans raise chickens?
A: They plant them too deep.
Did you hear Montana and North Dakota were having a war? North Dakotans were throwing bombs into Montana. Montanans were lighting them and throwing them back.
A North Dakotan goes ice fishing. He finds a nice spot and starts to drill a hole in the ice. Suddenly, a big booming voice crys out: “North Dakotan! There are no fish down there!”.
So the North Dakotan finds another likely spot in the ice and begins to drill. Again, a big booming voice “North Dakotan! There are no fish down there!”.
So the North Dakotan moves again. Even before he can begin drilling in the ice, the booming voice rings out: “North Dakotan! There are no fish down there!”
The North Dakotan shouts. “OK. But who are you anyway? God?”
And the booming voice says “No, I’m the arena manager.”
Yeah, we have a ton of jokes about inhabitants of other states. Some are just between adjacent states, others are national.
For example: I live in Virginia, near DC and Maryland. Whenever I see a bad driver on the highway, it sticks in my mind if they’re from Maryland. Other Virginians have developed this opinion too, so we often use Marylanders as the butt of bad driver jokes.
"My friend applied for handicap license plates. When I first saw them, I saw the little wheelchair and the word ‘Maryland’ across the top. I asked him, ‘Isn’t that redundant?’" ba dum dum
The topics I usually see in state stereotype jokes: (Fellow Americans, my apologies up front)
[ul]
[li]Arkansas - Hillbilly jokes[/li][li]California - liberal jokes[/li][li]DC - lawyer / politician jokes[/li][li]Florida - Jewish retiree jokes[/li][li]Montana - Loner jokes (a la The Unibomber)[/li][li]Texas - braggart jokes[/li][li]Utah - Mormon / bigamy jokes[/li][li]Washington - Rain / Microsoft jokes[/li][li]West Virginia - Hillbilly / incest jokes[/li][/ul]
In Texas they are Aggie jokes. An Aggie for those of you who don’t know are the students at Texas A & M. I made up a good one about bonfires but shall refrain from making it in polite company.
In Switzerland, we make fun of the inhabitants of the canton of Appenzell, the joke being that they are very short.
Sample:
“Why do Appenzellers laugh when playing soccer?”
“Because the blades of grass tickle them under the armpits.”
For stupidity, the jokes are usually aimed at the canton I lived in, Fribourg (farmland.)
Sample:
“How can you tell a Fribourgeois at the Cointrin airport?”
“He’s the one throwing bread crumbs to the planes.”
In french-speaking countries, the Belgians are sometimes also used as the butt of “they so stupid” jokes.
Sample:
“A Belgian and his wife are out at the theatre, seeing Hernani (a play by Victor Hugo.) The wife pokes her husband on the arm and says ‘Look, in the first row, that man is Victor Hugo!’ The husband replies ‘Everyone knows that Victor Hugo is dead.’ Five minutes later the wife pokes her husband again. ‘He is not dead, he just moved!’”
Did ya hear about the Aggie that moved to Oklahoma?
Raised the IQ of both states!
Aggies are a good target exactly because they are not stupid. Texas A&M is one of the best schools in the state, maybe in the country.
I love aggie jokes. One of the earliest one jokes that I can remember is:
How do you drive an aggie crazy?
Put him in a round room and sit him in the corner
(Yes, this is the clean version)
The one rag-on-the-neighbors joke I remember from our 18 months in Indiana:
Did you hear that Indiana and Illinois are working together to create the county’s largest zoo?
They’re fencing off Kentucky.
Another variant I’ve seen is to make fun of one’s own heritage. The town where I grew up (in Maine) was mostly settled by French immigrants and it was common to tell Frenchmen jokes. On the one hand, the kids telling them considered themselves “American”, so the French were fair game, but since nearly everyone’s grandmother was actually French, no one was unfairly singled out for ridicule.
How many Frenchmen does it take to make popcorn?
1 to hold the pan and 4 to shake the stove.
It is also worth noting that, although there was a large Native American population in that town as well, no one told “Indian” jokes, at least in polite company. There were lingering tensions between the groups which I assume prevented the same sort of “let’s all laugh about ourselves” attitude.
