Stammering donkey
Julia from London tells us about a man who walks into a pub...
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A man goes into a pub and the barman says 'Hello donkey, what can I do for you today?'
And the man says 'Hello b-b-b-bill, can I have a p-p-p-pint of beer please?'
And the barman says 'Course you can donkey' and he goes off to get him a pint of beer.
The man standing next to him says 'That's not very nice, he just called you donkey, why's he calling you donkey?'
And the man says 'He-aw, he-aw, he-always calls me that.'
Marie says
This is a good joke performance with Julia acting out the dialogue between the two men, mimicking the stammer which contrasts with her own verbal skills and fluid speech.
A man went into a pub….This is a hugely popular joke type across the survey. In most cases the jokes take on a surreal character where men are accompanied by talking or performing animals.
This greatly increases the scope for comic inventiveness. In this joke, it's the man who performs like a donkey due to his stammer. It's a good example of how jokes are constantly reinvented.
It's a popular form because it reflects a culture of leisure in the UK, and in the USA and Australia where these jokes are also popular, in which groups of men, usually without women, spend their leisure time in bars and pubs.
The joke also ridicules human defects and disabilities, playing with boundaries between abnormality and normality. Jokes can be cruel and designed to shock but they are mock shocks.
Content last updated: 30/05/2007
