IF CORN OIL IS MADE FROM CORN, AND VEGETABLE OIL IS MADE FROM VEGETABLES, THEN WHAT IS BABY OIL MADE FROM?
What’s so funny about this? This joke should be funny to everyone except maybe the baby whose face seems perplexed, or puzzled. It just goes to show you how illogical English and probably most other languages can be. The only difference is that each language has its own illogicity. That’s a word I just made up. It means the state of not being logical. Logic is also highly relative even within the same language because we all have different minds. What’s logical to you might be illogical to me and vice versa. The reason every language has different illogical elements is because of different grammars and rules of pronunciation and usage. Whenever a word or phrase does not follow an expected pattern it can and will be called illogical by someone. Language learners are particularly sensitive to illogicity. That’s because they are learning a language piece by piece trying to fit it all together; whereas we native speakers just blab away without giving a second thought to what we are saying. In the joke we have a standard adjective + noun situation. In English the adjective usually, but not always, precedes the noun it modifies or describes. So corn oil is oil made from corn. Vegetable oil is made from vegetables. Same thing with olive oil. But what about baby oil? If the pattern holds then the logical answer is that it’s made from babies. This, of course, is not impossible, but it is highly unlikely. The more reasonable conclusion is that the modifier is not the source of the oil but the purpose for it. In other words, it’s oil FOR babies. Consequently corn and olive oils COULD be made for the purpose of rubbing it on ears of corn or on little olives, but I doubt it. And THAT’s what’s so funny!
This joke was sent to me by Jim Offner. The photo is from Amy on flickr.com
