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An everchanging array of jokes is being told and heard, read and thought about, remembered and misremembered, and forgotten. An omniscient observer might mark Introduction  exactly what is being told, by whom, to whom, in what social settings, and what hearers and readers make of it, and so forth. But obviously we have to settle for a rough approximation of this imagined reality. Recorded jokes and oral transmission Some of the jokes presented here are taken directly from the oral tradition and most from published reports of that tradition.

For any given item, it is always possible that the switch took place among tellers in the oral tradition and was merely recorded by these compilers. 130 It should be emphasized that switching is selective rather than indiscriminate. Some attempted switches just don’t “take” and disappear from view; others flourish and may grow more prominent than the original version. But what “takes” is not controlled by the teller or writer; it has to strike a responsive chord in the listeners/readers. So just which items negotiate the transition from their original subjects to new ones tells us something about social perceptions.

Discourse: Lawyers lie incorrigibly. They corrupt discourse by promoting needless complexity, mystifying matters by jargon and formalities, robbing life’s dealings of their moral sense by recasting them in legal abstractions, and offending common sense by casuistry that makes black appear white and vice versa. B. Economic Predators: Lawyers are economic predators; they are greedy, moneydriven monopolists. They charge outrageously high fees, misread social exchanges as professional consultations, shamelessly pad their bills.