How Many Mexicans Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb

Jokes of the course "How many does information technology take to screw in a lightbulb?"

A lightbulb joke is a joke cycle that asks how many people of a certain group are needed to modify, replace, or screw in a lite bulb. More often than not, the punch line answer highlights a stereotype of the target group. There are numerous versions of the lightbulb joke satirizing a wide range of cultures, beliefs and occupations.^[1] ^[2]

Early versions of the joke, popular in the late 1960s^[3] ^[4] and the 1970s, were used to insult the intelligence of people, especially Poles ("Polish jokes").^[5] ^[vi] For instance:

Q. How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Three—one to agree the light seedling and ii to turn the ladder.

Although lightbulb jokes tend to be derogatory in tone (e.k., "How many drummers..." / "4: one to hold the calorie-free bulb and three to drink until the room spins"), the people targeted past them may accept pride in the stereotypes expressed and are frequently themselves the jokes' originators,^[vii] equally in "How many Germans does it take to alter a lightbulb? 1, we're very efficient but not funny." where the joke itself becomes a statement of ethnic pride. Lightbulb jokes applied to subgroups can be used to ease tensions between them.^[eight]

Variations [edit]

Some versions of the joke are puns on the words "change"^[9] or "screw",^[10] or "low-cal":

Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. None—the light seedling will change when it'southward ready.^[11] ^[12]

Q. How many flies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Ii, merely don't ask me how they got in there.^[13]

Q. How many hands does information technology take to change a lightbulb?
A. Many.

Lightbulb jokes may be responses to current events, particularly those related to energy and political power.^[14] For instance, the lightbulb may not need to be changed at all due to ongoing ability outages.^[15] The Village Voice held a $200 lightbulb joke contest around the time of the Iran hostage crunch, with the winning joke being:^[sixteen]

Q. How many Iranians does information technology take to alter a light bulb?
A. You ship the states the prize money and we'll tell you the reply.

Lightbulb jokes can as well be about sports, teasing nearly their teams past, future, etc.

Q. How many Liverpool fans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. They don't, they just talk almost how good the old i was.

References [edit]

^ Elaine Viets (1991-09-04). "Calorie-free Bulb Jokes: Screwed-Up Humor". St. Louis Post-Dispatch . Retrieved 2007-12-xiv . Some light bulb jokes make fun of ethnic groups, gays and women. Others shed calorie-free on sure professions...
^ "How Many Students Does It Have." New York Times. 2004-11-07. Retrieved 2007-12-14 . Colleges have become the theme of at least one anecdote: the lightbulb joke.
^ "Try and Stop Me". Daily Review (Hayward, Cal.). xi July 1965. p. 4. Retrieved 7 May 2014. Q. How many morons does information technology accept to change a lite bulb? Three: one to hold the bulb while he stands on a ladder! two to revolve the ladder.
^ Simmons, Donald C. (July–August 1966). "Anti-Italian-American Riddles in New England". Periodical of American Folklore. 79 (303): 478. doi:10.2307/537513. Retrieved 7 May 2017. How many Italians does it accept to change a lite bulb? Three -- one to hold the calorie-free bulb and two to turn the ladder.
^ Dundes, 261.
^ Kerman, 454–v.
^ Kerman, 456–vii
^ Richard M. Grimes (1996). "Shedding Light on Public Health". Journal of Public Health Policy. Palgrave Macmillan Journals. 17 (ane): 99–101. doi:10.2307/3342661. JSTOR 3342661. PMID 8919963.
^ Dundes in Boskin, 255–6.
^ Dundes in Boskin, 253–five.
^ Morris W. Drinkable Jr. (September–October 2003). "Tedious Change in a Fast Civilisation" (PDF). Educause Review: 10.
^ Martin Carnoy, Richard F. Elmore, Leslie Santee Siskin (2003). The New Accountability. Routledge. p. 195. ISBN978-0-415-94705-three. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Suarez, Louise Marie (1991). Folklore and Its Electronic Modes of Transmission: Xerography, Electronic Post, and Facsimile. University of California, Berkeley.
^ Dundes in Boskin, 255.
^ Michael Miller (2001-02-16). "And the winner is ... California". Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. Retrieved 2007-12-xiv . At that place are also a dozen light-bulb jokes zooming effectually the Cyberspace, but what good are lightbulb jokes if yous don't have power?
^ Dundes, 264.

Notes [edit]

Alan Dundes (1981). "Many Hands Make Lite Work or Caught in the Human action of Screwing in Light Bulbs". Western Folklore. Western States Sociology Lodge. 40 (three): 261–266. doi:10.2307/1499697. JSTOR 1499697.
Alan Dundes (1981). "Many Easily Make Lite Work or Caught in the Deed of Screwing in Light Bulbs". In Joseph Boskin (1997). Humour prism in twentieth-century America. pp. 250–7. ISBN978-0-8143-2597-ane.
Judith B. Kerman (1980). "The Light-Bulb Jokes: Americans Look at Social Action Processes". The Journal of American Folklore. American Folklore Club. 93 (370): 454–458. doi:10.2307/539876. JSTOR 539876.