I thought

[undyingking]

Does anyone know if there's a name for jokes that are roughly of the form "I thought [X] was a [Y] until I discovered [Z]"?

The humour normally turns on X having two homophonous interpretations -- either the first is innocent and the second is innuendish (in which case Z was traditionally "Smirnoff"), or there's an ironic contrast between the two meanings, or else the homophony is just wackily inventive... there are probably other sub-forms too.

Anyone got any good examples?

(Edited to correct spelling of homophonous!)

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Anyone got any good examples?

I'm not sure the point is to be "good" as such - most of the examples I've encountered are along the lines of "I always thought Fellatio was a character in Hamlet until I discovered Smirnoff".

Has the format been repurposed by someone, or are you in need of ways to amuse drunk 6th formers? ;-)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I have heard quite a few good examples where it's been repurposed to house a dreadful pun. In my perception, in recent years this has taken over from the rather lazy Smirnoff usage.

Unfortunately, they don't work very well in writing, but here's one such: I thought a Thai director was a batik-wearing member of the clergy until I discovered Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(Of course, that only is funny in the natural context of a conversation about the relative obscurity of South-East Asian cinema. And arguably not even then.)

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

That took several readings. Ouch.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Likewise. Although it did get a smile, unlike the various Smirnoff jokes!

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I thought a Thai director was a batik-wearing member of the clergy until I discovered Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Is that a joke, or cruel and unusual punishment?

[venta.livejournal.com]

in which case Z was traditionally "Smirnoff"

That rings a strange bell. I think there were examples of that joke-form in Nigel Rees' Graffiti books. I have a vague idea that, at the tender age at which I read them, I had no idea what it was talking about and didn't understand why it was supposed to be funny.

I don't know the answer to your question, though.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

We shall have to think of a name, then. (Mm, I suspect the original Smirnoff ads may predate even my own venerable commercial awareness.)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

From now on I shall call them "I thought" jokes, unless anyone comes up with somehting better.

[sparkymark.livejournal.com]

The overarching category is "Snowclone" which encompasses "X have thirty different words for Y" and "X is the new Y", though nobody is certain if the word existed before someone created a wikipedia page on it.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I believe 'snowclone' was coined in the context of Language Log; at least they seem to think so. 2004 would be pretty early for Wikipedia, but I guess it's possible.

But I think this thing under current discussion is too large and self-sustaining a structure to be a true subset of snowclone. A snowclone, I think, is a snappy phrase used as a colouring passing allusion in a larger thought, not something that's set up just for the purpose of the substitution. Otherwise knock-knock jokes would be snowclones just because they can be expressed as "Knock knock / Who's there? / [X] / [X] who? / [X] [Y]".

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I thought a hearse was a quadruped until I got into necrophilia?

I thought baas were what sheep did until I got old enough to go into one.

(Not very good, but the best I could do at short notice)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I smiled! And now you've got all night to think of more :-)

I think I might have actually heard someone say once "I thought sheep were worried by dogs, until I discovered Welshmen."
(Which is slightly different as it uses polysemy rather than homophony, but same general idea.)