We were talking in the office the other day about how old jokes keep recirculating and sometimes the punch line varies depending on the audience. The premise is the same, just with a cultural or racial spin on the end.
This fact seems confirmed with the recent discovery of a ancient Roman joke book.
Written in Greek and dated to the third or fourth century AD, the book contains some 260 jokes which are similar to the jokes we have today, like the absent-minded professor.
For example:
An ancient version of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch sees a man buy a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the seller, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him."
Ot the joke that is a version of the Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman variety, with a barber, a bald man and an absent-minded professor taking a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me."
Or, an absent-minded professor is asked by a friend to bring back two 15-year-old slave boys from his trip abroad, and replies "fine, and if I can't find two 15-year-olds I will bring you one 30-year-old".
Yeh, ok. They aren't that funny today either.
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