Proof positive that fart jokes are a four thousand year-old tradition, at the very least:
Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.
From Sumeria, ca. 1900 BC. I think something of its je ne sais quois got lost in translation. Either that, or the art of the joke has come a loooong way.
This is from AOL’s list of the 10 oldest jokes. Most of them leave you with a “guess you had to be there” feeling, but this, I thought, speaks volumes about the human condition even now:
Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said “I’ve had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died.” — 4th to 5th century AD, dated to the ‘Philogelos,’ or ‘Laughter-Lover,’ the oldest extant jest book
This reminds me of far too many people currently in charge of this country, corporations, and the educational system.
But it still made me giggle.
Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said “I’ve had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died.” — 4th to 5th century AD, dated to the ‘Philogelos,’ or ‘Laughter-Lover,’ the oldest extant jest bookHeh. My step-dad used to tell me that joke. He’d be tickled to know it is one of the oldest recorded jokes.
Okay, when he told it, it was a horse, and he said it in modern vernacular, and he made the punchline work better to modern ears, but it was definitely the same joke.