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The subreddit has a simple name - Oneliners and it was created quite a while back in 2009. Over the years, it has attracted 150k subscribers and people are still quite actively posting new jokes there.
In the description, the subreddit creator explains what is a one-liner: “A one-liner is a succinct, funny or witty remark. The joke should fit into one or two sentences.” It is not to be confused with a short joke: “Generally, if your joke would be more funny if it was written into more sentences, it's probably not a one-liner.” Although if the second sentence is a short sentence, it may be considered a one-liner.
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Research conducted by Catherine Chauvin revealed that there are quite a few types of one-liners. She found that most of them were pun-based, when the author of the joke takes advantage of a word having more than one meaning.
Another big group of one-liners are set phrases. They are not funny by themselves and they are considered to be fixed but they can be modified when they are interpreted literally. An example the author of the article gives is, “It pains me to say it, but I have a sore throat.”
One-liners also rely on syntactic ambiguity, implicatures, and logical absurdities. They include riddles, pick-up phrases, and comebacks.
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Despite its simple structure, a one-liner is quite a complex form of humor because the brain has to work quite a bit to process it and to understand it. Often, the meaning of a one-liner is not obvious and is hidden in the layers of language itself and the situation described in a few words.
Richard L. Lewis explains that “when an incongruity is reached, the brain is ready to reanalyze utterances to find the problematic structure and reapply information to resolve the incongruity. In humor, this process results in the discovery of humor, and the parsing itself produces laughter.”
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Did these one-liners make you laugh? Which type of jokes do you personally enjoy the most? Have you found your new favorite one-line joke in this list? Let us know by upvoting your favorite ones and leave more funny short jokes in the comments!
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