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Dirty Jokes
At The Academy And Angela Morrison
by Thomas Peck
The traditional lore of high schools and college campuses have not
yet received from folklorists the close consideration and analysis which
is common in most areas of folklore study today. The principal reason
for this seems to lie with the fact that until recently folklore has been
generally viewed as a thing of the past and only prevalent among the
poorly educated or illiterate peoples of the world. Such an idea today,
however, has little value to the modern folklorist, who realizes that
folklore must consist of all unwritten oral lore whether it exists in badly
deteriorated remnants on some isolated island in the Pacific Ocean or
whether it is alive and common among well-educated literate groups
such as high school students. —
My investigation focuses on a quite restricted area of the folklore
of Academe—the telling of the “dirty joke” among two separate folk
groups—the male students of The Academy, Pennsylvania, and the fe¬
male students of the Angela Morrison School in Pinewood, Pennsyl¬
vania. My search and investigation has been centered on the contrast
of these two folk groups pertaining to the sex-lore I have collected.
That is, I have investigated the types of jokes told, the type of people
who tell them, and the reasons for relating them.
In the collection of these jokes, rhymes, and riddles I had many
interesting experiences, and a few problems that seemed to deter my
investigation temporarily, especially with the Angela Morrison girls.
The Angela Morrison School was founded and instituted in 1869
by a quite proper, upright Englishwoman named, appropriately enough,
Angela Morrison, whose goal was to provide young girls between the
ages of six and eighteen with a sense of proper values in life along with
a higher education. One of the school’s mottoes—“All the hopes of fu¬
ture years” shows some idea of what the school’s policy is.
The basic problem I had to contend with at this girls’ school
stemmed from the fact that I was a male, a member of the opposite sex.
This immediately placed a “sex barrier” between me, as the collector,
und my female informants. Many would become extremely embarrassed,
and it was immediately obvious that I could not expect a new female
Acquaintance to immediately recite her repertory of obscene lore, es-
Svmmer Issue 1970 93
pecially into a tape recorder. This is where the “traditional taboo”
came into play. For a higher class, well-educated female in our society,
such as one might expect from such a school as Angela Morrison, it
is taboo to speak of such things as obscenity and dirty jokes to a male,
while the reverse is not true. For such a female is traditionally thought
of and expected to be dainty, unspoiled, and above all, innocent. In¬
nocent, that is, until her first night in her wedding bed. This is what
the problem stems from, and the embarrassment and silence is the na¬
tural reaction of these girls to it. One fifteen year old Angela Morrison
girl, when asked why she would not relate any of her dirty jokes, re¬
plied: “It’s not that I’m embarrassed or anything like that. It’s just
that dirty jokes don’t interest me.” I think that speaks for itself.
Thusly, I was faced with near failure in my inability to get any
of the informants that I did manage to persuade to tell their jokes onto
tape. I did, however, make some brilliant efforts such as reassuring them
that their names would not be disclosed. I even tried to record them
secretly only to be foiled by a noisy tape recorder. The main problem
was, of course, the fact that no girl who had any serious interest in
boys would want to be thought of as crude or indecent by any boys
who might hear the recording.
Finally, however, I found the answer in what could be called an
“indirect method.” That is, I had my principal informants relate their
jokes to my sister, Cathy, an eighth grader at Angela Morrison, who
in turn agreed to record them.
Cathy Peck is now fourteen years of age and is completing her
first year at the Morrison School. She was born in Ramsay, New Jersey,
on February 5, 1954, as the first girl and third of five children in the
family. She has lived in Radnor, Pennsylvania, for five years, this year
being the first she has attended a private, all-girl school. The case with
which I got her to do what seemed so difficult in other cases seems to
result from three basic factors. First, the fact that she is a member of
my family and thusly, the idea of any sexual contact or desire or
thought of same would be eliminated from the telling of the jokes, and
she is therefore quite open. Secondly, the fact that at her age she really
doesn’t care what some distant twelfth graders would think of her, and
thirdly, the fact that she is somewhat naive and really does not under¬
stand the extent of the obscenity she is relating and the thought of the
“traditional taboo” does not really have effect in that she has no status
to lose. Therefore, my problem was resolved with an informant who
indirectly relates other girls’ jokes for study and at the same time gives
of her own repertory without any of the traditional, basic hang-ups.
94 Keystone Foliloxb Qdaeteely
Collecting and investigation at The Academy, on the other hand,
was quite easy. The Academy was founded in the same noble tradition
as Angela Morrison, with the first Bishop of Pennsylvania founding it
in 1742. His name was the Rt. Rev. William Black and he was assisted
by many other noble, gallant, upright, early Americans.
There was some reluctance at first by some of the informants to
actually record any of their lore. This, however, soon disappeared when
everyone started getting into the act. Thus, because of the absence of
any sexual barriers or traditional taboos, my collecting at The Academy
was somewhat diversified. I had no one principal informant, for I
strived to get the broadest range of personalities involved. They ranged
from the original puns or limericks of the intellectuals and honor stu¬
dents to what might be termed the lower elements or “foulmouthed”
members of the Upper and Middle Schools. Thus, basically there ap¬
pears quite a contrast in the sex-lore collected at both schools where
in one, basic traditional taboos, sexual barriers or plain hang-ups, if
they can be called such, limited the supply while in the other, the ab¬
sence of the same obstacles facilitated collection and resulted in a
greater diversity of the collected data.
The classification of these collected jokes can be formed in many
ways, both broad and minute. There appears to be a great amount of
difference between the jokes told by the boys as opposed to the girls.
G. Legman did quite an extensive job of studying the dirty joke in his
four-inch thick book, The Rationale of the Dirty Joke. Legman exam¬
ined most aspects of the dirty joke in detail and classified them under
broad topics and sub-topics. His classification, however, has little value
for my study, for I am basically concerned with the contrast and differ¬
ence in subject material between the jokes told by teenage boys and
teenage girls of two basic folk groups at two different schools. Legman,
on the other hand, concentrated on the actual breakdown of the jokes,
many of which are unknown to my two folk groups, into motifs and
patterns. Legman also has very little to say about the sex-lore of teen- /■
agers. He is more concerned with the subtle, “cocktail type” joke than
with the blatant obscenity which characterizes the typical Academy or
Angela Morrison joke. Therefore, I have formed my own basic classi¬
fication according to broad and smaller categories which are relevant
to my topic.
The broadest breakdown which can be found between these two
folk-groups is a category which might be called the point of view of
the joke teller. In the male jokes, the female is shown to be the “dupe”
or object of the humor, and the reverse is true of the majority of the
Summer Issue 1970
95
female jokes. Here are some examples with the informant listed:
Don Becker, senior, The Academy:
“How do you tell when a woman is wearing panty-hose?”
Ans.—“When she farts, her ankles swell.”
Another riddle donated by Dave Madden, a senior at The Academy,
ulso supports this view:
“When does a cub-scout become a boy-scout?”
Ans.—“When he eats his first brownie.”
Thus, from the male-teller’s point of view, the woman is made ob¬
ject of the humor. Angel Morrison also has its share of jokes and
rhymes which place the male as the object of the humor:
Janet Luwrence, ninth grade, Angela Morrison —
Up the hill went Molly Brown
swore no man could lay her down.
Up the hill went piss-pot Pete
Fourteen inches of hanging meat.
Pete got Molly to the grass
stuck his dick right up her ass
Molly Brown, she laid a fart and
Blew his balls two miles apart.
Down the hill went Molly Brown
Swore no man could lay her down.
Down the hill went piss-pot Pete
Fourteen inches of shredded meat.
Another example donated by Dorothy Trapp, tenth grade at
Angela Morrison:
In Days of old when knights were bold
And jocks were not invented,
They tied a sock around their cock
Thus ruptures were prevented.
Janet Lawrence, ninth grade, Angela Morrison:
I was walking down Canal Street lookin’
in every door, God Damn Son of a Bitch
I couldn’t find a whore —
When I finally found her, she was tall
and thin. GDSOB I couldn’t get it in.
96 Keystone Folklore Quarterly
When I finally got it in I moved it all
About, GDSOB, I couldn’t get it out
When I finally got it out, it was red and
sore GDSOB, I aint gonna fuck no more.
These three female obscene rhymes clearly make the male the
object of the humor or lack of it. The male here is characterized as a
lowly creature inferior to the female.
The second broad category of classification one could find in these
jokes is a classification according to the subject matter of the joke.
That is the division between male or female sexual objects as the source
of humor in the joke, riddle, or rhyme. The girls of Angela Morrison
tell many jokes concerning their menstruation periods whereas the boys
are unacquainted with such jokes. Cathy Peck related one joke where
a woman goes into a doctor’s office with a tampax behind her ear in
the place of a pencil. The surprised doctor tells her to see the secretary
who inquires:
“Why do you have a tampax on your ear?”
and the surprised woman replies:
“Oh my God, where’d I put my pencil?”
Janet Lawrence recalled a riddle which Cathy Peck recited:
“How did Cinderella die?”
Ans: “Her tampax turned into a pumpkin at twelve o’clock.”
In the same respect many Anegla Morrison girls had not heard
many male object jokes such as the typical castration joke commonly
known to most boys, where a man goes swimming in the ocean and finds
he is being attacked by a shark, and he says “Help, Help,” in a low
voice, and finishes with “A shark bit me” while his voice rises to a high
pitch. The effectiveness of such a joke, of course, depends on the rising
voice of the teller. Another example of the male subject matter as the
source of the humor is a “circumcision riddle” donated by Griff Hueber,
a sixth-former at The Academy.
“What does a circumcisionist get paid?
Thirty skins a week and a chance to get a head.”
This example is characterized by a “play on words” with “a head”
and “ahead.” Understandably a whole separate category could be cre¬
ated for the classification of the “play on words” joke, including the
pun which has always been popular. Another joke where the male’s
Summer Issue 1970 97
member is the object was told by Peter Hilton. Here a man suns him¬
self naked on the beach only to receive a bad sunburn on his male
member. “At night while in bed with his girl, it hurts him so bad that
he goes into the kitchen and sticks it in a glass of milk, and his girl¬
friend comes in and secs him and says, “Oh, I always wondered how
you loaded that thing.”
Another story-type joke where the male’s sexual organ is the ob¬
ject of the humor, and where the punch-line is also a play on words was
donated by Jeff Carter, a twelfth grader at The Academy. Here a
teacher finds a new pupil who says that her last name is “Pimple.” The
teacher does not believe her, and the little girl replies that the teacher
can prove it by asking her mailman. Jeff Carter’s punch line:
“Mr. Mailman, do you have a “Pimple” on your route? (root)
Ans. “No, but I have a boil on my ass.”
Still another category under the heading of the “play on words”
jokes is the “Confucious saying,” which is more prevalent at The Aca¬
demy than at the Angela Morrison School. A1 Taylor, a junior at The
Academy gives two examples:
“Confucious say. Virgin like balloon—one prick all gone.”
“Confucious say, Kotex not best thing on earth, but next to it.”
Bob Mitchum, a senior, relates:
“Confucious say girl who fly airplane upside down have
crack-up.” Barbara Boyle of Angela Morrison recorded through Cathy
Peck:
“Confucious say man who goes to bed with sex problem wake
up with solution in hand.”
Then, of course, there is the pun, made famous by honor student,
Dave Pagan of The Academy. Here are two examples of Dave’s obscene
puns. Both, he says, are original. They are, of course, placed under
the heading of the “play on words” joke.
“What is another name for sexual morality?
Well, that name is a penal code.”
“Did you hear about the female sheriff?
Well, everyone wanted to get into her posse.”
The obscene pun seems to be non-existent at the Angela Morrison
School.
98 Keystone Folxloee Quaetxxlt
The obBcene riddle is, however, popular at both schools and can be
placed in a category of classification by itself. Here is one that Cathy
Peck claims she was told by a male teacher in the school: a Mr.
Erickson.
“Why couldn’t the mama train and papa train have babies?
Because the papa train pulled out too fast.”
Alice Gold, a junior at Angela Morrison recites:
“What were you once? Daddy’s little squirt.”
Cathy Peck: “Why can’t witches have babies? They have Hollow-
weenies.”
“Why can’t gypsies have babies? Because the men have crystal
balls.”
From The Academy Don Becker riddles:
“What is the smallest hotel in the world?
A cunt because you have to leave your bags outside.”
“What’s the difference between a rooster and a whore?
A rooster says cock’l doodle do while the whore says. Any cock
will do.”
John Reilly of the sixth form relates:
“How did Captain Hook die? He wiped his ass with the wrong
hand.” Cathy Peck recalls one riddle which is about the least obscene
of all obscene riddles ever told:
“Why did the male bubble follow the female bubble down the
drain? He wanted to see her bust.”
All these riddles, of course, fall into the broad classification of
“play on words” jokes in the same manner that the puns and obscene
Confucious sayings do. All of these jokes rely on the double meaning
of words for their sources of humor.
The next category of classification one could find among these ob¬
scene jokes is the classsification according to rhyming. Here, the jokes
depend both on the rhyme scheme and the meter, and include three basic
categories: the nursery rhyme parodies,1 the obscene limerick, and the
typical rhymed tale or Folk Poetry.
The nursery rhyme parodies become popular, according to Jan
Si mmer Issue 1970 99
Harold Brunvand, “At first, as children learn the rhymes by heart,
they will rebel at any variation that is introduced into their favorites.
Later, however, they delight in parodies of nursery rhymes,”2 and
“What may be the best-known verse in the English language, ‘Mary
Had a Little Lamb’ is also probably the most often parodied.”8 This
view is upheld when one hears a typical nursery rhyme parody from
Angela Morrison. Cathy Peck: “Mary had a little sheep and with that
sheep she went to sleep. She soon found out it was a ram. Mary had a
little lamb.” or, Nancy Boyle, fifth grade, Angela Morrison:
“Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down on top of Jill and now they have a daughter.”
The nursery rhyme parody is not popular at The Academy, nor is it
even present. However, the obscene limerick is quite alive at The Aca¬
demy, yet almost non-existent at Angela Morrison.
Warren Wollman, sixth form:
“There was a young lady named Alice who used a dynamite stick
for a phallus.
They found her vagina in South Carolina and part of her anus
in Dallas.”
John Palmer, sixth form:
“There was an old Hermit named Dave who kept a dead whore
in his cave.
He said I’ll admit I’m a bit of a shit but think of the money
I save.”
The rhymed tale or Folk Poetry is present and popular at both The
Academy and Angela Morrison. Don Becker is famous at The Academy
for his “Barnacle Bill the sailor” tale which has a number of verses and
is sung to a simple tune:
“What if we should have a child, (repeat), (repeat), said the
fair young maiden.
I’ll dig a ditch and bury the bitch said Barnacle Bill the sailor.”
Angela Morrison has its share of Folk Poetry also, such as “walking
down Canal street” already recited in my first broad category, and
another version of “Days of Old”:
“In days of old when knights were bold
and toilets weren’t invented
They laid their loads beside the road and
walked away contented.” (recited by Dorothy Trapp)
100 Keystone Folklore Quarterly
Another small category of classification might be termed obscenity
for its own sake. Here, Angela Morrison takes the prize with the
greatest number of these so-called jokes in which most people find no
humor. The object is to “gross-out” the listener. One such Morrison
joke concerns a girl who collects all her used sanitary napkins in a
closet. Her boy-friend comes to take her out and goes into the closet
to retrieve her coat. He emerges with:
(Barbara Boyle, tenth grade) : “Boy those were good jelly doughnuts—
got any more?”
There are other versions of this joke circulating about Angela Mor¬
rison including one which substitutes the napkins for scabs and pus
which are collected:
(Cathy Peck): “Boy that was good potato chips and dip—get me some
more.” The Academy’s crude jokes told for obscenity’s sake have a
trifle more humor:
“What’s big, black, hairy and sits on a wall?—Humpty cunt.”
Of all the joke-types told at both these schools, the story joke is
definitely the most popular. One joke was found at both Angela Mor¬
rison and The Academy where a man goes to a whore-house to find the
best woman with the largest vagina he can find, for his member is the
largest around. After trying several different women with no success,
the manager sends him to room “69” where the price is the highest,
however,
Tim Campbell recites the punch-line:
“Hey, this is great-where have you been all my life, honey?
With this the cow replies — Mooooooo !!!”
There are also some minor categories of obscene jokes which stand by
themselves. These include such categories as the obscene “Polack Joke”
which belongs to what Brunvand terms the “joke fads.” A few collec¬
tors have recognized that the fad-cycles are generally made up of
riddle jokes rather than of “jokes proper.” The Polack Joke follows
such a fad-cycle. “All such joke cycles, although they appear and dis¬
appear much more rapidly than old traditional folklore, and despite
the boost that mass communication gives them, clearly belong to the
field of folklore and deserve the folklore study.” 4
Peter Huff, sixth form, recites an obscene “Polack Joke”:
“How do you tell if a Polack lady isn’t wearing panties?
You find dandruff on her shoe-tops.”
Summer Issue 1970 101
Another minor category is the “show me joke”, (obscene)
(Bob Mitchum, sixth form) :
“Show me a whore with eight arms and eight legs and I’ll show
you an octopussy.”
There are also the typical “obscene sayings” present at both Angela
Morrison and The Academy:
(Nancy Boyle, fifth grade)
“Isn’t it depressing to know you ran down your mother’s leg”
or Tom Robert’s answer to the request for a match:
“Yeah, a bufflalo’s fart and your breath.”
Don Becker recited an interesting combination of a tongue-twister and
a limerick, all obscene, of course:
There was a young man named Skinner
Who took a young lady to dinner
They went out to dine
At a quarter past nine
At a quarter past ten, it was in her
The dinner, not Skinner
Skinner was in her before dinner.
Thus, one can clearly see that the possible classifications for these
dirty jokes are many; both broad ones with sub-headings, and the tradi¬
tional categories such as Riddles, Limericks, Polack Jokes, puns, etc.
Of course, the classifications often overlap with the ones placed in the
broad categories such as “play on words” or the object of humor, over¬
lapping and belonging to the smaller categories. The reverse is also true
when most of the smaller classified groups can be placed with the
broader classifications of these dirty jokes.
Some basic conclusions, generalizations and a basic hypothesis can
be deducted from the collection, classifications and analysis of the ob¬
scene “Folklore of Academe” from The Academy and the Angela Mor¬
rison School and thus, both all-boy and all-girl schools in general.
The first generalization that can be reached concerns the actual
subject matter of the jokes. Both the male and female joke-tellers tend
to place their own sex into a superior position in the creation of their
jokes. That is, they generally create and tell jokes which make the op¬
posite sex seem less intelligent or capable, especially in the perform¬
ance of the sexual act. The opposite sex often is made to play the part
of the “dupe” in the joke also.
102 Keystone Folkloxe Quaxtbxly
A second generalization which seems apparent is the fact that many
of the objects used as the source of humor are not used by the opposite
sex. Specifically, a male rarely hears a joke about sanitary napkins or
Tampax tampons. It seems as if the idea of menstruation is distasteful
to males, but of course, they don’t experience it and are thus far dis¬
tant from it. In the same respect a girl rarely tells a joke about castra¬
tion or circumcision. They may either find it distasteful or merely not
have enough knowledge of such a masculine subject. It seems obvious
here that the creators of such jokes are probably invariably males,
and the inventors of the jokes pertaining to menstruation are probably
females.
This brings up another basic generalization or conclusion that
might be deduced. This is the fact that much of the language used by
both sexes in the telling of their jokes is unknown by the opposite sex.
Such terms as “bird” or “root” which are used by the male to de¬
scribe his member are widely unknown by the teenage girls of Angela
Morrison. This can be proven by the experience I had with my sister,
Cathy, who stole my tape recorder to listen to The Academy jokes.
She then proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions pertaining to the
terms The Academy informants used. In the same respect I had a bit
of trouble with some female terms such as the use of “hit” for the term¬
ing of the coming of menstruation each month. It seems logical that
each sex invents many terms which stay within their own folk group
of their general sex. This seems to prove the fact that because of the
“traditional taboo” and sex barriers, boys and girls just do not relate
their dirty jokes to members of the opposite sex, at least not at this
age. This then explains my problem with the collection of jokes from
Angela Morrison, in part.
“Traditional Taboo,” however, has a greater and deeper effect
upon the type of joke told at the Angela Morrison School among the
girls. It actually effects the type of joke told. For, as a girl grows up
with the traditional law of society stating she is not to act, talk or
seem crude or obscene in any way, her creative genius of joke invent¬
ing is, of course, going to decrease. This is especially true within the
Main Line, at such “proper” girls’ schools as Angela Morrison. This,
it seems, helps explain the reaction to The Academy boys to the jokes
of the Morrison School. The over-all reaction was one of disinterest after
hearing some of the jokes. They felt that there was a great lack of
humor in the jokes, and it seemed that the majority were purely ob¬
scene jokes for obscenity’s sake. This belief was supported in my collec¬
tion. I refrained from using many of the cruder ones for the simple
reason that it was distasteful for me to even think about them.
Summer Issue 1970 103
The lack of creative genius in the formation and telling of the
Morrison jokes brings me back to my interview with Barbara Boyle,
age sixteen, of the Morrison School. She stated to the effect that dirty
jokes really did not interest her too much, although she admitted they
once did. She also admitted that she was embarrassed to tell them with
the reference to what she termed as “the restrictions of society.”
This leads to another important conclusion that could possibly be
reached. A belief held by many people is one to the effect that a girl,
after she passes the ajjCM)f self-discovery around the age of thirteen or
fourteen years, slowly loses'lhTT great sexual curiosity and drive until
she fully develops herself for sexual experiences around the age of nine¬
teen. If one is to take this belief for fact a conclusion can be reached
regarding the seeming disinterest in sexual-type jokes between the ages
of fifteen and nineteen, and it can also explain the low number and
diversity between the Morrison jokes as compared to The Academy jokes.
During this interval of time where the teen-age girl seems quite a bit
less interested in dirty-lore, she may be going through an “emotional
awakening” where sexual matters are not as important to her. All of
these reasons may help explain the lack of creative-genius and seeming
disinterest which result in a small number of undiversified dirty jokes
which are told between the ninth and twelfth grades.
Now, the sexual awakening which most girls generally experience
in the seventh and eighth grades is well explained by Rosalind Erskine
in her book, The Passion Flower Hotel. Here, “the syndicate” give their
reasons for their “orgies” in the hotel. They are all experiencing that
sexual awakening: “Whereas the female approaching maturity is denied
male companionship by the modern upper-class educational system,
thus being exposed to the dangers of perversion, introversion, and frus¬
tration. And whereas adolescent members of both sexes are conditioned
by training and upbringing to a sterile and unnatural caution and
reserve... the meetings to be guaranteed free from interruption by
whomsoever, for Purposes of mutual research and education.”6
Cathy Peck, my principal informant, is going through such an
awakening, and this, in part, expains her great interest in dirty jokes,
both male and female, of all types, and her willingness to record them.
This also explains the basic naivety and uncreativeness with which
these jokes are composed. The fact is that the majority of them were
composed during the early teenage years when the understanding of
sexual matters was limited. Thus, we have the basic reason for the
seemingly immature jokes which generally characterize Angela Morrison.
Thus, a basic hypothesis is deduced—the lack of abundance, diver-
104 Keystone Folklore Quarterly
sity, creativity, and humor which characterize the Angela Morrison
“dirty joke” stems from a continually diminishing interest in such jokes
caused by both the “traditional taboo” and the emotional state of mind
which the young female experiences throughout her middle and teenage
years.
Such an hypothesis may be oversimplified, however, it is the basic
conclusion I have arrived at through this study. The study of the “Folk¬
lore of Academe” is an open and basically untouched field for the
folklorist to investigate and explore. Much more detail and analysis is
needed, and the folklorist of the future will find plenty of material to
collect, study, and analyze in a very promising field. The study of the
“dirty joke” and other general sex-lore in high schools and college
campuses is only a small restricted area of a vast and extremely inter¬
esting realm.
NOTES
1. Brunvand, J. H. The Study of American Folklore, An Introduction, p.
61.
2. Ibid, p. 61.
8. Ibid, p. 61.
4. Ibid. p. 118.
6. Rosalind, Erskine The Paseion Flower Hotel, p. 39.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brunvand, J. H. The Study of American Folklore, An Introduction, New York:
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1968.
Rosalind, Erskine The Pastion Flower Hotel, New York: Simon and Schuster,
1962.
SUMMEE I88UE 1970 105