Jokes

She had the knack of misusing, generally quite involuntarily, ready-made expressions or the most varied platitudes. During an interview for a job of which she no longer expected much, she heard herself describe her interlocutor as a “delegate of Father Christmas”. Between a slip of the pen and a joke, she had thus always imagined that the expression “qui ne dit mot consent” (“silence implies consent”) was written “qui ne dit mot qu'on sent” (lit. “he who says nothing one can feel”), inviting the subject only to speak about well-established perceptions. In this respect, the expression seemed closer to Ludwig Wittgenstein's statement “That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent” than to the expression of a hesitation or of a general difficulty in expressing or taking a position, in making a choice. It also seemed to her to take into account the fundamentally perceptual aspect of all language, just as it was important above all to say things that one felt strongly in order to express oneself as well as possible, in whatever way (voie) (voix=voice) that might be.1

As its name indicates, perhaps better in the French language than in the German language (Witz), the joke (Fr: mot d'esprit) is a matter of language.2 It is also a matter of wit. Is it a question then of bringing out the wit of the joke or of giving the joke in question more wit than it seems to have initially? In any case, it was in aristocratic France that it was considered important to possess wit, even if this could verge on absurdity (“ridicule”)3 during certain bouts of verbal jousting at the King's court.

The joke disarms or defuses criticism, or censorship, diverts attention or tension. It thereby liberates an aggressive, teasing or mocking form of expression, in a side-step that tempers the attack or conceals it. Although it is aimed at one person or another, it is also generally addressed to a third party or to a public, tasked, through its reaction, with confirming its intention, somet