Ever need a fact or quotation on joshing? Designed for speechwriters, journalists, writers, researchers, students, professors, teachers, historians, academics, scrapbookers, trivia buffs and word lovers, this is the largest book ever created for this single word. It represents a compilation from a variety of sources with a linguistic emphasis on anything relating to the term “joshing,” including non-conventional usage and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities. The entries cover all parts of speech (noun, verb, adverb or adjective usage) as well as use in modern slang, pop culture, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This “data dump” results in many unexpected examples for joshing, since the editorial decision to include or exclude terms is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under “fair use” conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. Proceeds from this book are used to expand the content and coverage of Webster’s Online Dictionary (www.websters-online-dictionary.org).

Familiar Quotations

Joshing – "Jokes"

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.–Anonymous

The average man is proof enough that a woman can take a joke.–Anonymous

A rich man's joke is always funny.–Thomas Brown

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law.–Dick Clark

A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.–Joseph Conrad

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.–Max Eastman

If you work on a lobster boat, sneaking up behind someone and pinching him is probably a joke that gets old real fast.–Jack Handy

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel.–James Humes

You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.–Spike Lee

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.–Georg C. Lichtenberg

• Preface iv
• Familiar Quotations 1
• Joshing – "Jokes" 1
• Joshing – "Kids" 2
• Joshing – "Teasing" 2
• Use in Literature 3
• Joshing 3
• Joshing – "Jokes" 4
• Joshing – "Teasing" 5
• Joshing – "Uncle" 5
• Encyclopedic Usage 7
• Lexicographic Usage 15
• Index 66