Can someone explain this joke to me?

[usagora]

I feel stupid, but I honestly don't understand this joke that apparently a 10 year old does (they wrote it down in a card they gave me):

One corpse said to the other, "Why are you rotting?" The corpse said, "I decay."

I googled it and found the joke with slightly different wording, but it still makes no sense to me:

Two corpses are lying in a grave and one turns to the other and says,”Dude, why are you rotting?” The other turns to him and says, “I decay.”

Then I found another corpse joke that makes no sense to me:

An old man is dying. His grandson asks him, "papa.. What will happen to your body when you die?" The grandfather looks up weakly at him and says, "I decay..." Just then his monitor flat lines and the boy sat wondering why his grandfather didn't know what would happen to his corpse.

These jokes apparently hinge on some double meaning of or other word-play with "I decay," but I simply can't think of what it is.

Can anyone help me feel stupider by explaining these jokes to me? 😂

 

[mollyc]

In texting slang/abbreviations, IDK stands for "I don't know." But if you actually speak the letters outloud, I-D-K sounds the same as "I decay." In the joke, IDK stands for both "I don't know" AND "I decay."

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I feel old now.

 

[jeremysteele]

And here I am thinking this was a particle decay joke...

 

[decafjava]

I feel old now.

U R not alone.

 

[mollyc]

I feel old now.

Well I don't know how old you are, but I'm nearly 50! It helps that I have teenage kids.

 

[usagora]

In texting slang/abbreviations, IDK stands for "I don't know." But if you actually speak the letters outloud, I-D-K sounds the same as "I decay." In the joke, IDK stands for both "I don't know" AND "I decay."

Ah, that makes sense now. I've actually known what "idk" stands for as long as I remember, but I guess I either don't use that particular one myself very frequently and/or never pronounced it out loud, so that's why I didn't get the joke. Do people actually speak that acronym out loud? If I'm reading a text out loud that uses one of those acronyms, I always say the actual words. So if I were reading a text out loud that read, "idk, but i'll find out for u brb" I'd say, "I don't know, but I'll find out for you. Be right back" not "eye dee kay, but I'll find out for you. Bee ahr bee." 😂 I think "lol" is the only one I might literally pronounce ("el oh el") since it is probably the most well known and represents a sound, not a normal phrase.

Anyway, I actually don't feel stupid now, because that is a bit of an obscure reference, imo. But maybe I'm in the minority in not literally pronouncing most texting acronyms 🤷🏼‍♂️

EDIT: I realized after the fact that the kid who wrote the joke down for me actually put "idk" in there. They had written as the punchline "the corpse said Idk or I decay" but he writes his k's in an odd way that looks like two separate letters at times (an "l" and an "x"), so I didn't recognize it . . . I would've gotten the joke right away if I had!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Well I don't know how old you are, but I'm nearly 50! It helps that I have teenage kids.

I am too old for getting the joke, and my kids too young for them to get it also.

 

[Apple fanboy]

If you have to explain the joke, it’s not funny.
I had no idea what the joke was about either.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I had to sit, and think, and then I managed to work it out, (and thank you @mollyc, for your explanation).

However, I agree with @Apple fanboy: If you have to explain a joke, it is not funny, and that "joke" is not especially funny, even when you do work it out.

 

[usagora]

If you have to explain the joke, it’s not funny.

Well, that's a common saying, but to be fair, it often depends on who your audience is. There are plenty of jokes we and thousands of others would could be laughing hysterically about that a non-native speaker might just give a blank stare in reaction to because they don't get the reference. Doesn't mean the joke wasn't funny, but just directed a the wrong audience. Now, if it's a joke that you have to explain to 90% of any audience, then it's a bad joke.

But thanks for confirming I'm not the only one who didn't initially get it 😅

and that "joke" is not especially funny, even when you do work it out.

Remember, it was shared by a 10-year-old. They still laugh at poop jokes 😉

But I'm glad to know it wasn't just me!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well, that's a common saying, but to be fair, it often depends on who your audience is. There are plenty of jokes we and thousands of others would could be laughing hysterically about that a non-native speaker might just give a blank stare in reaction to because they don't get the reference. Doesn't mean the joke wasn't funny, but just directed a the wrong audience. Now, if it's a joke that you have to explain to 90% of any audience, then it's a bad joke.

But thanks for confirming I'm no the only one who didn't initially get it 😅



Remember, it was shared by a 10-year-old. They still laugh at poop jokes 😉

Even at ten, I didn't find poop jokes funny.

However, to be quite candid, initially, I didn't get it, and then, subsequently I only "got" it after some thought, simply because language, - the development of language, the evolution of language - crosswords, Wordle etc appeal to me and are of interest to me, and - phonetically - I-D-K made sense as a pun, which gave it the double meaning of "I don't know" and "I decay", which ten year olds could see as something clever.

Nevertheless, at the age of around ten, I do recall finding the joke question: "Spell mouse-trap in three letters", where the answer was "C-A-T" both clever and witty.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Well, that's a common saying, but to be fair, it often depends on who your audience is. There are plenty of jokes we and thousands of others would could be laughing hysterically about that a non-native speaker might just give a blank stare in reaction to because they don't get the reference. Doesn't mean the joke wasn't funny, but just directed a the wrong audience. Now, if it's a joke that you have to explain to 90% of any audience, then it's a bad joke.

But thanks for confirming I'm no the only one who didn't initially get it 😅



Remember, it was shared by a 10-year-old. They still laugh at poop jokes 😉

But I'm glad to know it wasn't just me!

I’m a native English speaker.
I’m not a native text speaker. I tend to write my texts in full mostly. Probably because I don’t know the slang mostly!

 

[Clix Pix]

I had to sit, and think, and then I managed to work it out, (and thank you @mollyc, for your explanation).

However, I agree with @Apple fanboy: If you have to explain a joke, it is not funny, and that "joke" is not especially funny, even when you do work it out.

I agree -- that is really a rather tasteless "joke," quite unfunny. Obviously that kid hasn't experienced death of a loved one yet....

 

[usagora]

Even at ten, I didn't find poop jokes funny.

Well, honestly I didn't either, but many, many do (even girls)! But I think you get my point--most kids don't have as "sophisticated" a sense of humor as adults do.

 

[Clix Pix]

Sorry, but jokes about death and dying and corpses are simply not funny, much less "sophisticated."

 

[JW5566]

I didn't get it either

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well, honestly I didn't either, but many, many do (even girls)! But I think you get my point--most kids don't have as "sophisticated" a sense of humor as adults do.

Agreed, most kids don't have an especially sophisticated sense of humour (and neither, for that matter, do some adults).

However, I am one of those who at five, or at ten, never found proverbial poop jokes, and similar stuff, remotely funny, and still don't.

However, the other thing is that humour is subjective, and sometimes, also, what is deemed humorous is quite culturally specific.

 

[usagora]

Sorry, but jokes about death and dying and corpses are simply not funny, much less "sophisticated."

That was my point--that children have a much less "sophisticated" sense of humor. This joke was seen as humorous by a child, not by me. Though I don't think it's particularly offensive either, seeing as it doesn't involve real people or some tragic situation that affects real people. I remember when I was in 8th grade, a friend told me a death joke about Christa McAuliffe that even at that age I found totally offensive. To me, that crossed a very clear line.

 

[KaliYoni]

Clearly nobody here has played The Last of Us (part 1) or is a fan of the streaming series...
;-)

 

[mollyc]

as far as jokes for the ten year old crowd goes, i think this is pretty funny.

the entire ground we walk on is made up of decayed stuff. it’s the circle of life and nothing to be horrified about.

admittedly, in the hallway right outside the children's section of the library i went to as a kid, there was a mummy, so maybe my perception is warped. still wonder about that some 40+ years later, but it was alway fun to go look at.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Clearly nobody here has played The Last of Us (part 1) or is a fan of the streaming series...
;-)

Big fan. Really enjoying the series.

 

[Nermal]

Ah, that makes sense now. I've actually known what "idk" stands for as long as I remember, but I guess I either don't use that particular one myself very frequently and/or never pronounced it out loud, so that's why I didn't get the joke. Do people actually speak that acronym out loud?

Same here. I've never heard it said aloud, and therefore I didn't make the connection.

Clearly nobody here has played The Last of Us (part 1) or is a fan of the streaming series...
;-)

Never got into that. I played the first couple of hours but it wasn't really my kind of thing, so I have no idea what's being referenced here!

 

[KaliYoni]

so I have no idea what's being referenced here!

Puns play a big part in the character development as well as in the dynamic between two main characters.

 

[Gregg2]

In texting slang/abbreviations, IDK stands for "I don't know." But if you actually speak the letters outloud, I-D-K sounds the same as "I decay." In the joke, IDK stands for both "I don't know" AND "I decay."

Jokes are meant to be spoken rather than written. But who speaks in texting “shorthand”?