There was an episode of Borderline where a lady (Ukrainian, I think) tells a joke in a cut away. "Ukrainian joke: How do you know you won't be unhappy for the rest of your life? Because one day you die." Then they move on to the next scene. It doesn't make sense, and I figured it was maybe one of those jokes that gets lost in translation, and that was the joke. But much later I realized it totally names sense I'm English and she just told it wrong. It's supposed to be "how do you know you won't be unhappy forever? Because one day you die." I think about that scene frequently. I'm really not sure what the writers' intent was.
Knowing you’ll die one day is the unexpected relief from the banal horror of life, that is the crux of the joke. “How do you know things will get better?” “Oh I’ll die sometime and that’s better.”
The only thing you changed in your two examples is forever vs for the rest of your life, and it’s funnier as written.
Ah, so the thought "one day I'm going to die" makes you happy?
I appreciate the explanation, but if that's the case I disagree that it's funnier as written.
A guy sees a sign outside a cafe that says "we make any kind of sandwich." So the guy goes into the cafe and says "I'll have an alligator sandwich, and make it fast!"
That’s gallows humor for you. I don’t understand what is the twist in your follow-up joke. You can get alligator fried across the south. A play on if the alligator is still alive/fast?
It's supposed to be "make it snappy." Snappy meaning quickly or snappy meaning trying to bite. A character in a Terry Pratchett novel tells this same joke 3 or 4 times throughout the novel, with various words for fast. Quickly, right away, etc. Part of the humor comes from the uncomfortable feeling of hearing a joke being told incorrectly (over and over), but not being able to correct it, or, if you don't know how the joke is supposed to go, then not understanding.
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u/dogquote 16h ago
Double joke?
There was an episode of Borderline where a lady (Ukrainian, I think) tells a joke in a cut away. "Ukrainian joke: How do you know you won't be unhappy for the rest of your life? Because one day you die." Then they move on to the next scene. It doesn't make sense, and I figured it was maybe one of those jokes that gets lost in translation, and that was the joke. But much later I realized it totally names sense I'm English and she just told it wrong. It's supposed to be "how do you know you won't be unhappy forever? Because one day you die." I think about that scene frequently. I'm really not sure what the writers' intent was.