A married couple were looking for a new shirt for him. Having no fashion sense, the husband picked out 6 shirts that he thought were ok, and took them to show his wife. His wife pointed to the one she preferred and said "That's the one I'd get", and she was promptly killed by a cyclops. I don't get it. Cyclopses and shirts have no relation in my mind.
As the language shifted off into the west the rules of pronunciation shifted with it. In Italianate Church Latin gs before high front vowels (es and is) shifted to the softer j and cs were pronounced as an English ch. In German Church Latin the gs remained hard in all positions and the cs before es and is were pronounced as an English ts.
And here I thought it was an outside joke, like the one we'd pull in college after reading Freud. We'd prearrange a meeting with some unsuspecting schlub and tell the joke about the two Eskimos sitting on the iceberg and one of them points up into the sky and says, "Radar!" Everyone would then break up laughing leaving the poor schlub wondering what was so funny. We'd patiently explain to him that he obviously hadn't understood Chapter Seven on dream analysis which he would go back and reread to no avail. This could be repeated a great number of times depending on the schlubitude index of the victim.
An inside joke is a joke that is only funny if you have some piece of information, usually information most people don't have. Therefore, an outside joke is a joke that is only funny if you don't have a certain piece of information. According to this definition, once you are told the "missing piece," the joke wouldn't really be as funny.
An inside joke is a joke that is only funny if you have some piece of information...an outside joke is a joke that is only funny if you don't have a certain piece of information
That's pretty much what I had in mind when I coined the phrase. It's in the great outside world now and I no longer have full control over the meaning.
Here lies the body of Martha Dias Who was always uneasy, and not over pious; She lived to the age of three score and ten, And gave that to the worms she refused to the men.
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