A joke whose humor I couldn't get straight away

Discuss any questions in English. Practise your writing skills.

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VictorB
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#1

Сообщение VictorB »

Here's a joke from a book I'm reading:
Question: What's the difference between a vitamin and a hormone?
Answer: You can’t hear a vitamin.
Did you get it?
As for me, I had to make a considerable effort to figure out why the character who'd heard it found it hilarious. It seems to me I got it, yet I'm not dead sure I got it right. So I'd like to check on what is my best guess with those forumers who can get the humor of the joke straight away.
For those who, like me, fail to think of the collocation the joke might be based on, here's the link that may help.
P.S. BTW, the book is Private Pleasures by Lawrence Sanders. I wonder where it appeared first - in the novel (1994) or on Reddit or elsewhere on the net)))
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#2

Сообщение Yety »

VictorB пишет: 29 янв 2022, 03:07 here's the link
Y got a little confused by the dates:
Humans Emit Sex Scent Signals
By Amy Malick, PhD
6 January 2006, 17:06
• 5 min read

Aug. 29, 2001...
Anyhow, it's still nearly a decade younger than the book your quote is from:
VictorB пишет: 29 янв 2022, 03:07 the book is Private Pleasures by Lawrence Sanders. I wonder where it appeared first - in the novel (1994)
So, it's as ugly as it can get...
Grammatically, it suggests a 'Complex Object' involving a street-walker in action...🤪
wordplay after foreplay))Показать
"a whore moan"
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#3

Сообщение Dragon27 »

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#4

Сообщение Juliemiracle »

VictorB,
I didn't get it. Thought about harmony/harmonica and then read Yety's explanation. Either it's too linguistically advanced or too vulgar for me. But I hardly ever get such jokes with vulgar allusions in Russian as well.
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#5

Сообщение VictorB »

Juliemiracle пишет: 29 янв 2022, 13:01 I didn't get it. Thought about harmony/harmonica and then read Yety's explanation.
Juliemiracle, and my train of thought took me in the direction of choosing a collocation either with the noun or the verb "smell". I think my Runglish thinking (слышать запах) played a trick on me there, and the one I could think of was "a loud smell".
By the way, the one who didn't get the joke in the novel was a proficient perfumer to whom odors might be compared with notes to compose a tune. It turned out far simpler than that; however had the question been put like in Dradon27's video (Can you hear a hormone?), I think I'd have gotten the joke in it. At the same time, an afterwit is everybody's wit)))
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#6

Сообщение Juliemiracle »

VictorB пишет: 29 янв 2022, 13:55 I think my Runglish thinking (слышать запах)
Not sure it's Runglish, e.g. I don't use such phrasing in Russian. Maybe more aural perceptionist? :)
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#7

Сообщение VictorB »

Juliemiracle пишет: 29 янв 2022, 14:08 I don't use such phrasing in Russian
I do in casual speech, a born resident of Saint Petersburg.
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#8

Сообщение Yety »

VictorB пишет: 29 янв 2022, 03:07or elsewhere
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/whats_the_difference_between_a_vitamin пишет:The “hormone"/"whore moan” pun has been cited in print since at least the 1950s.

Google Books
The Virginia Spectator
1954
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#9

Сообщение VictorB »

Yety пишет: 29 янв 2022, 16:25 The “hormone"/"whore moan” pun has been cited in print since at least the 1950s.
So, it had taken the English-speaking world nearly five decades to record this joke in writing, the term "hormone" having been used for the first time in 1907. And they are still laughing their heads off at the joke as trite as that... Well, I never! )))
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#10

Сообщение Dragon27 »

VictorB пишет: 29 янв 2022, 16:52 And they are still laughing their heads off at the joke as trite as that
The world is always full of people who have never heard or seen something practically everyone else has. And watching their reaction will never become boring.
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#11

Сообщение VictorB »

Dragon27 пишет: 29 янв 2022, 17:00 And watching their reaction will never become boring.
Oh, that... If this is what there is, I can't but agree:)
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#12

Сообщение Kind_Punk »

My first thought was about a shouting woman on her period )
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#13

Сообщение Yety »

Juliemiracle пишет: 29 янв 2022, 13:01 or too vulgar for me
How 'bout a more sophisticated version?=)))
Yety (Weak forms. Alaska = I'll ask her)
Now I know why I had that vague feeling of déjà vu when I read that 'hormone' joke!
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#14

Сообщение VictorB »

Yety пишет: 21 мар 2022, 23:07'hormone' joke!
...which is a homophone joke)
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#15

Сообщение Yety »

Hate to keep walking in that vulgarity field, but one could easily figure out how to construct these jokes once you get the pattern..

Well, I'll just give you a couple of words that could easily be employed in a DIY joke of that sort:
harmonica
Monica Lewinsky
Bill Clinton
saxophone
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#16

Сообщение Yety »

Talk about a cheesy joke...=))
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