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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The anti-drinking nun
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Simon
Editor
# 1
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Posted
Joke submitted by IceGreen:
Murphy was going into the pub when he was stopped by a nun standing outside. "Don't go in there," she said to him, "drink will be the ruin of you. It's a terrible thing."
Murphy was having none of this and said to the nun, "Drink is great, sister! Have you ever tried it?"
"Well, no," said the nun.
"I tell you what, sister," said Murphy. "I'll get you a drink and after you've tried it, you tell me if you still think it's terrible."
"Well, all right," said the nun, "but please get it in a china cup. I don't want people to be scandalised by seeing me drinking in the street."
So Murphy goes into the pub and says to the bartender, "Give me a double whiskey, but put it in a china cup, please."
"God Almighty," says the bartender. "Don't tell me that freakin' nun is outside again!"
[ 15. July 2005, 09:15: Message edited by: Simon ]
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Eternal memory
Posts: 3787 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2001
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
This joke is so ancient I'm surprised the 19th century paleontologists did not find it amongst the fossils of the Jurassic period.
I'm of an age to remember such tiresome Catholic practises as the "Pioneer's Pledge" (of total abstention from alcohol) being encouraged, if not forced, on newly ordained priests, kids receiving Confirmation, and the like. Though there is nothing in Catholic theology that prohibits a drink - and Mediterraneans would shake their heads at such nonsense - priests and nuns in Ireland (and, I'd assume, elsewhere... but my old prayer books from Ireland develop the idea most) were supposed to be on a passionate path to get everyone to agree not to ever take a drink. So, those who did take a drink, however innocently, had to be ashamed and hide this.
Of course, this joke equally does not work because, in a time when nuns wore long habits and such, they would not be likely to be out alone, let alone be in or in front of the pub.
It's a trite, boring, silly joke that would suffer the more today for being so dated. I don't find it particularly funny, but it is totally inoffensive.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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Zeke
Ship's Inquirer
# 3271
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Posted
Having not been around nuns much, this really made me laugh. Not just because it's somebody who is presumably above hanging around bars, but the surprise at the end(I hadn't heard this before, believe it or not). I see by what Newman's Own said that it is a very old joke and that the presuppositions are false, but to the person who isn't acquainted with religious, this does seem funny, because you think of these people as being in prayer and meditation a good deal of the time. This plays on the old cliche of the nun in a habit, behaving herself all the time.
I'm a little surprised by my own reaction to this, because I actually know better if I were to really think about it. I've actually been personally acquainted with only one nun, who was very old and was my tutor for a while at university. She wasn't anything like this, but I wasn't thinking of her when I read the joke. I didn't find it offensive, once again because of my lack of knowledge in the area.
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No longer the Bishop of Durham
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If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? --Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 5259 | From: Deep in the American desert | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
I'd not heard this before.
I thought it was funny. Also, after I'd read the punchline, for some reason I assumed it wasn't a real nun, which makes a lot of the objections go away.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
Yer, first time I'd heard it. Got a chuckle but it would have been stronger without the blasphemy and pseudo-swearing at the end.
Jokes that have to include those things aren't secure in their funniness...
Posts: 13667 | From: Perth, W.A. | Registered: May 2001
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Coot:
Yer, first time I'd heard it. Got a chuckle but it would have been stronger without the blasphemy and pseudo-swearing at the end.
Jokes that have to include those things aren't secure in their funniness...
Absolutely! In the first eighty-four editions of this joke, the ending was merely "Is that nun here again?" (In some versions, the nun is sitting in the pub at a table.)
Of course, I also see another 'inside joke' which made the original a bit funnier. This joke was repeated at just about every religious gathering 35 years ago. At the time, nuns, priests, bishops, and others in 'teaching positions' all too often had to repeat diocesan directives and such which really did not matter to them, or with which they disagreed. (I'm not referring to doctrine - but to things like the new directives on marriage preparation programmes, or Confirmation being administered at a later age, or parents having to 'take instruction' before kids could be baptised.) The Sister is not opposed to a drink - but has to promote the abstinence.
[ 14. July 2005, 15:55: Message edited by: Newman's Own ]
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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dorothea
Goodwife and low church mystic
# 4398
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Posted
Why did this joke make me give a half laugh? I think it was the fact the whole thing is patently ludicrous and thus rather absurd: the china cup for example. (Ladies and china cups??? what century are we in here?*) Also, it was very corny, which often gets my vote (this says more about my sad sense of humour than it does about the actual quality of a joke). I find I often laugh at daft stuff just because it is daft and not because of much else. It's not the sort of joke that you'd half laugh twice at, however.
Offensive…you must be joking.
*Newman's Own comments puts this into more of a context for me but that was after I'd originally responded with a half laugh.
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Protestant head? Catholic Heart?
http://joansbitsandpieces.blogspot.com/
Posts: 1581 | From: Notlob City Limits | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Ok I guess it was a little corny, but ingenious. The little old nuns in my parish have barely enough to live on, we are told. It was a VERY big event last week when we got five new nuns in our diocese coming out of seminary.
Just the thought of a little old nun going down the pub and chatting up a working man with advice on not to drink, then pretending she never had done was enough to make me laugh alot. Then the barman recognizing her as a regular was just icing on the cake. No offense here!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
The little old nuns in my parish have barely enough to live on, we are told.
I would imagine that is quite true. I've lived in convents where we did not even have adequate food.
Sir Kevin's post reminded me of a subtle element which effects the situation in this joke. Religious (whether nuns or friars), even when they are permitted to visit people outside of the convent or go out for a meal, are totally dependent on others to invite them - they have no money of their own. The Sister's mild indulgence in a little drink requires that she get someone else to buy this.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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