The Joker

the Joker is a humorous news of Science-fiction of Isaac Asimov, published under the original title of Jockester in 1956.

The central figure, No5el Meyerhof, are a Large Master, one of the dozen in the world of which the intuition if is developed that they are used as human interfaces with Multivac, the super planetary Ordinateur.

Meyerhof is surprised telling a joke with Multivac: does it become insane? Does it try to divert the creative power of Multivac to constitute a collection of new jokes to its profit?

A significant part of this news is devoted to the jokes themselves. One finds there in particular variations on three which follow the, well-known ones of the French-speaking people:

Pierre returns at his place to the improvist and discovers his wife with the bed with her best friend: “Jean, that then! Me, I am obliged there, but you? ”

the schoolmistress asks for a young girl the reason of her delay. This one explains: “I had to take along the cow to the bull, mad' moiselle. - You? How! Can't your father do that itself? - Oh not, mad' moiselle! How it is necessary is the bull! ”

a woman is with the article of death. Her husband holds the hand to him, close to the bed. the woman tries to speak: “Cherished… - Chut! Do not speak! - Darling, lets speak to me. I must acknowledge you something… - You do not have anything to acknowledge. All is well. - Not, all is not well… It is necessary that I acknowledge you a thing if not I will not be able to die in peace: I misled you! - does not worry you, I am with the current… Why would I have poisoned you if not? ”

Incidentally, Asimov evokes the reasons which make laugh:

to have interpreted an event in an unexpected way;
to believe itself higher than the characters of the joke;
to be relieved by the sudden relaxation of the tension;
to be astonished by incongruity by a scene.

Asimov also recalls that humor is the characteristic of the man, that the jokes are cultural and are not universal and that there exist people that no joke makes laugh. There exist also jokes which make laugh nobody, such this one:

Pierre meets Paul in the street and says to him hello. Paul answers him “hello”.

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