Preface

Then there was the Bigger family with Mr. Bigger, Mrs. Bigger, and Baby Bigger.
Q: Who was the biggest?
A: Baby Bigger, because he was a little bigger.

Growing up, this was my favorite joke. Every time I met someone new, someone who might become a good friend, I imposed my own personal rite of initiation and told the joke. I had a childlike delight in the telling. And I suppose, though I've never articulated it until now, I wanted to show that to my new friend, to let her know that it's ok to keep her guard down; we won't be doing anything too risqué and the bar is not set very high here; there's more fun for all if we know in advance it's that way.

I learned the joke from a book my dad bought for my sister, my brother, and me. The book is called Jokes, Riddles, and Puns.* He bought it in 1961 when I was six. His inscription says, "The jokes on me." It certainly was. It kept part of me six forever and ever.**

How do you know whether to tell a joke or refrain from doing so because it's not appropriate for the situation? This is one of those things that you can intuit, but you can't know. My dad would do it by feel and circumstance. You knew it was coming because the smile would precede the joke. He enjoyed the telling. And I'm my father's son.

There's another way the Bigger joke, and the Absent Minded Professor jokes, and even the Moron jokes, indeed many of the various jokes we all learned as kids, were an education in themselves. They introduced us at a very young age to word play and made that one of our habits. And they showed us that if you've got a joke that a friend hasn't heard then it's your imperative to share it. I have a very slim inventory of jokes that are in the can and that I can bring out in a moment's notice, but now and then I can seem funny with in-the-spur-of-the-moment type of humor that my dad cherished and cultivated in us. Where does that come from?

In coming up with puns, witticisms, or rhymes that impress;
It is critical to make the intelligent guess.
Equally important, however, as I must stress;
An appeal to a sense of good taste, you must repress.

This, then, is the the theme of the book. Go for the intelligent guess. Go for it in our own behavior. Then encourage our students to go for it too. Go for it even when a sense of good teaching might say otherwise. If that doesn't seem right, guess again.

*It appears the original joke dates back at least to the very early 20th century.
**Now We Are Six, by A. A. Milne