Highbrow Humor (High Humor)
Highbrow humor jokes require knowledge in the field of study that they take place in. Highbrow humor jokes usually contain sophisticated and specialized material that not everybody understand.
Did you hear about the man who got cooled to absolute zero? He’s 0K now.
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This joke combines the use of a pun and knowledge about chemistry.
This joke depicts highbrow humor by using a chemistry related pun. Absolute zero occurs at temperature where molecules stop moving and zero kelvin (oh means zero k means kelvin) is the temperature of absolute zero which the man is currently at.
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Examples:
A photon checks into a hotel and the porter asks him if he has any luggage. The photon replies: “No, I’m travelling light.”
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In the example to the left, the photon says "[he's] travelling light". In physics,a photon exists as a small particle of light. This makes the joke amusing because travelling light means photon and carrying no baggage. Because of its reliance on knowledge in physics, this joke characterizes highbrow humor.
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A programmers wife tells the programmer, "Go shopping and buy a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, get a dozen." The programmer returns home with twelve loaves of bread
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In the example to the left, the programmer brings home twelve loaves of bread. In programming, an "if then" phrase triggers an event. Get a dozen will refer to get a dozen (loaves of bread) in code. Therefore, the programmer will go to the store and look for eggs. Since the store has eggs, he buys a dozen loaves of bread. Because of its references to coding, the example to the left exemplifies highbrow humor.
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