Want to make your brainy friends laugh this weekend?
Redditors took turns sharing their favorite intellectual jokes that require a certain specialized knowledge to understand. We've gathered our favorites here, and provided a quick explanation for each.
(An earlier version of this post was written by Dylan Love and has been updated.)
Question: What is the difference between an entomologist and an etymologist? Answer: Only the etymologist knows.
It's funny because: The two words sound very much alike, but an "entomologist" is someone who studies insects while an "etymologist" is someone who studies the history of words and their origins. So, the etymologist would know what the difference between the two, while the entomologist wouldn't.
Extra credit follow-up from another Reddit user: "Something about this joke bugs me just a little"
A guy walks into a sandwich shop and sees a sign that reads, "Home of the Meanest Grilled Cheese in Town." So he orders the grilled cheese. When his bill arrives the waitress asks him how he liked the sandwich. "Eh, it was about average."
It's funny because: Colloquially, "meanest" means best, so at first you think that the man is disagreeing with the shop's claim abouts its grilled cheese. But "mean" also means average, so, he's really agreeing.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
It's funny because: A rhetorical question isn't meant to elicit a reply, so this cleverly plays on a traditional joke format, but without having an answer.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider