ABSTRACT
The tall tale involves exaggeration and ingenuity in finding ways of using exaggeration. In bombast, however, the nonsense has been turned into something meaningful, but the mode of expression, the exaggeration, reveals a joking sensibility. The humor in the joke revolves around a misunderstood allusion. If life is absurd, as many existentialists suggest, then the humor of absurdity can be seen as a means towards realism: an understanding of humanity's predicament and our possibilities in an irrational universe. Allusions are the bread and butter of everyday humor and are very much tied to social and political matters as well as situations which have a sexual dimension. In the "Jack the Grapefruit" joke there are a number of humorous techniques at work. It has an element of facetiousness about it, with a character with a bizarre name, Jack the Grape. In certain respects the glossary is similar to Vladimir Propp's pathbreaking book, Morphology of The Folktale.
