{"id":28468,"date":"2013-01-06T16:06:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-06T16:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/28468\/"},"modified":"2013-01-06T16:06:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-06T16:06:24","slug":"1600-pennsylvania-avenue-colloquy-4-the-joe-miller-joke-book-report-on-the-we-uns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/28468\/","title":{"rendered":"1600 Pennsylvania Avenue \/ Colloquy 4: The Joe Miller Joke Book \/ Report on the We-Uns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a4yX8JRLlHQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\nAfter Miller&#8217;s death, John Mottley (1692&#8211;1750) brought out a book called Joe Miller&#8217;s Jests, or the Wit&#8217;s Vade-Mecum (1739), published under the pseudonym of Elijah Jenkins Esq. at the price of one shilling. This was a collection of contemporary and ancient coarse witticisms, only three of which are told of Miller. This first edition was a thin pamphlet of 247 numbered jokes. This ran to three editions in its first year.<\/p>\n<p>Later (not wholly connected) versions were entitled with names such as &#8220;Joe Miller&#8217;s Joke Book&#8221;, and &#8220;The New Joe Miller&#8221; to latch onto the popularity of both Joe Miller himself and the popularity of Mottley&#8217;s first book. It should be noted that joke books of this format (i.e. &#8220;Mr Smith&#8217;s Jests&#8221;) were common even before this date. It was common practice to learn one or two jokes for use at parties etc.<\/p>\n<p>Owing to the quality of the jokes in Mottley&#8217;s book, their number increasing with each of the many subsequent editions, any time-worn jest came to be called &#8220;a Joe Miller&#8221;, a Joe-Millerism, or simply a Millerism.<\/p>\n<p>Joke 99 states:<\/p>\n<p>    A Lady&#8217;s Age happening to be questioned, she affirmed she was but Forty, and called upon a Gentleman that was in Company for his Opinion; Cousin, said she, do you believe I am in the Right, when I say I am but Forty? I ought not to dispute it, Madam, reply&#8217;d he, for I have heard you say so these ten Years.<\/p>\n<p>Joke 234 speaks of:<\/p>\n<p>    A famous teacher of Arithmetick, who had long been married without being able to get his Wife with Child. One said to her &#8216;Madam, your Husband is an excellent Arithmetician&#8217;. &#8216;Yes, replies she, only he can&#8217;t multiply.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Joe Miller was referred to in Charles Dickens&#8217; A Christmas Carol (1843), by the character Scrooge, who remarks &#8220;Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending [the turkey] to Bob&#8217;s will be!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Joe Miller was also referred to in James Joyce&#8217;s &#8220;Ulysses&#8221; (1922) in the limerick that Lenehan whispers during the Aeolus episode to Stephen Dedalus, the last line of which is &#8220;I can&#8217;t see the Joe Miller. Can you?&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>According to Leonard Feinberg, the 1734 edition contains one of the oldest examples of gallows humor.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joe_Miller%27s_Joke_Book<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Miller&#8217;s death, John Mottley (1692&#8211;1750) brought out a book called Joe Miller&#8217;s Jests,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[29639,38245,15937,30812,38256,5747,38241,3931,47913,3930,2037,5739,31215,47906,47907,47909,47908,47911,47910,47912,38253,38240,12009,38246,47412,38238,12022,38257,2657,38250,38249,38242],"class_list":{"0":"post-28468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hand-care","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-author","10":"tag-book","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-clive","13":"tag-comedy","14":"tag-comic","15":"tag-crazy","16":"tag-crazy-gnarls-barkley-song","17":"tag-funny","18":"tag-hand-cream","19":"tag-hilarious","20":"tag-humor","21":"tag-humour-literary-genre","22":"tag-joke","23":"tag-jokes","24":"tag-laugh","25":"tag-laughing","26":"tag-laughs","27":"tag-laughter","28":"tag-letters","29":"tag-library","30":"tag-lol","31":"tag-novel","32":"tag-prank","33":"tag-reading","34":"tag-silly","35":"tag-story","36":"tag-three---ac-r","37":"tag-trailer","38":"tag-writer-profession","39":"tag-writing"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}