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From: AI.THROOP@R20.UTEXAS.EDU (David Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Two Logician Jokes
Message-ID: <12342761954.31.AI.THROOP@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 17:36:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: R20.12342761954.31.AI.THROOP
Posted: Thu Oct 15 17:36:24 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Oct-87 01:48:41 EDT
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#G-120-97A

I was hanging out at the Logicians Union Hall the other day and the place
was full of logicians, poring over logician's manuals and exchanging
gossip.  Well, every so often, one of them would call out a number, and all
of the others would laugh real hard.  Then they'd all go back to whatever
they were doing.

This seemed real odd behavior for such logical people.  So I asked Robert,
who's a logician friend of mine there, what was going on.

"Hey, this is a hall for logicians," he said.  "A while back, we collected
all of the jokes that we could prove were funny and put them in a catalog.
Everybody here's read it.  Now when somebody wants to tell a joke, they
just call out its serial number."  And he showed me the logical joke
catalog.  

I thumbed through it for a while.  Found a joke I liked.  And at an
opportune time, I called it out:  "G-120-97B!"

Nobody laughed.

I turned to Robert and said "So how come they didn't laugh?"

He shrugged.  "You didn't tell it right."

=============================================================================
G-120-97C

I was hanging out at the Logicians Union Hall the other day and the place
was full of logicians, poring over logician's manuals and exchanging
gossip.  Well, every so often, one of them would call out a number, and all
of the others would laugh real hard.  Then they'd all go back to whatever
they were doing.

This seemed real odd behavior for such logical people.  So I asked Robert,
who's a logician friend of mine there, what was going on.

"Hey, this is a hall for logicians," he said.  "A while back, we collected
all of the jokes that we could prove were funny and put them in a catalog.
Everybody here's read it.  Now when somebody wants to tell a joke, they
just call out its serial number."  And he showed me the logical joke
catalog.  

I thumbed through it for a while.  Found a joke I liked.  Actually, THIS
was the joke.  This joke I'm telling you right now, it's numbered
G-120-97C.  And here's where it gets hard.  Because if the joke is funny,
then the logicians laugh, and that spoils the punchline.  And the joke
isn't funny any more.  But if the logicians will laugh at any funny joke.
So if they don't laugh, it's because the joke isn't funny.  But then the
punchline works and its funny again.

So I can't tell you whether or not the logicians laughed.  Either way, it
spoils the punchline.
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