Celebrate Tell a Joke Day Every August 16

• By NSC
• 2 Comments.

 

 

August 16 is a day for laughter and silliness. It’s Tell a Joke Day.

What is a joke?

It’s something intended to be funny, and it can be spoken, written or performed.

Jokes can be as simple as one word or gesture or as complicated as a whole story. More often they’re a sentence or two. Sometimes a question and answer format … Like those knock-knock jokes kids love so much.

Different kinds of jokes use word play, irony, or sarcasm to make you laugh. The punchline is the final twist that makes the joke funny (well, sometimes!).

Synonyms for joke include quip, prank and jest.

The day is also called Joe Miller’s Joke Day, which might explain the choice of August 16. That was the birthday of an 18th century English actor named Joe Miller. He was famous for his one-liners.

But he certainly wasn’t the first jester. For better or for worse, pranksters, jesters and jokesters have existed since at least 1900 BC. And apparently the oldest joke may be a fart joke from ancient Sumer … So nice to know our sense of humor hasn’t evolved at all in thousands of years. ;-)

We don’t know who actually created Tell a Joke Day. But we’re guessing it was somebody fond of jokes. And possibly also a fan of Joe Miller.

This day is different from International Joke Day, which is on July 1.

Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficially silly (and hopefully funny!) holiday.

---

---

 

How to Celebrate Tell a Joke Day

This one’s about as simple as it gets: Tell a joke! Or tell lots of jokes.

And be fair: Listen to jokes, too. Otherwise how can anyone else celebrate the day? They need the chance to tell a joke or two, too.

Need some help coming up with jokes?

Try these sites:

• AhaJokes.com: Thousands of jokes organized by topic. Find food jokes, political jokes, one liners, and more. There’s also funny pictures, video, and audio.
• AJokeADay.com: Get a new joke every day. Or scour the archives; there’s 20 years’ worth of jokes.
• JokesWareHouse.com: Still more jokes, organized by topic. You can also sign up for the joke of the day or submit your own.

 

Or these books:

• Jokelopedia, Third Edition: The Biggest, Best, Silliest, Dumbest Joke Book Ever, by Eva Blank
• The Mammoth Book of Jokes, by Geoff Tibbals
• Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids, by Rob Elliot
• National Geographic Kids Just Joking: 300 Hilarious Jokes, Tricky Tongue Twisters, and Ridiculous Riddles

 

You might also want to check out the “official” 50 funniest jokes of all time. No, really!

See if you can find a broadcast of one of your favorite comedians on TV. Or head out to the comedy club to have a laugh or two.

Want to improve your own jokes or pranks? Consider taking a comedy or improve class.

What’s your favorite joke?

 

GoogleAd-NSC-Bottom (text-3)