Preface to the new edition -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Chapter 1. Introduction: Jokes, humor, and taste -- Researching jokes -- Jokes and humor -- Humor as a social phenomenon -- Humor and taste -- The context of Dutch humor -- The design of this book -- Part I Style and social background -- Chapter 2. The joke: Genesis of an oral genre -- The joke as oral culture -- The spread of the joke -- The genesis of the joke -- The status of the joke -- High and low humor -- Conclusion: Changing criteria for judging the joke -- Chapter 3. Joke telling as communication style -- Joke telling and social background -- Jokes and gender -- Jokes and class -- Gender roles and class cultures -- Joking and trade -- Humorous communication styles -- Gender and speech -- Class and speech -- Conclusion: Objections to jokes and criteria for good humor -- Chapter 4. The humor divide: Class, age and humor styles -- Humor styles: High and low, old and young -- Style, status, and knowledge -- Highbrow and lowbrow humor styles -- Arguments for lowbrow humor -- Arguments for highbrow humor -- The eye of the beholder? -- Humor styles and taste variations -- Conclusion: Humor styles beyond standardized Dutch humor? -- Chapter 5. The logic of humor styles -- Distinguishing good humor from bad -- Coarseness: Objections to bad humor -- "A good sense of humor": Criteria for good humor -- Class culture and humor style -- The sense of humor and the self: humor style and authenticity -- Conclusion: Jokes, taste, and authenticity -- Part II Taste and quality -- Chapter 6. The repertoire: Dutch joke culture -- Jokes and social boundaries -- Innocuous jokes: Stupidity and other unseemly behavior -- Sexual jokes: From allusion to transgression -- Irreverent jokes: Religion, power, suffering and sickness.

Hurtful jokes: Jokes at the expense of others -- Conclusion: The hardening of the humor -- Chapter 7. Temptation and transgression -- The balance between funny and offensive -- Varying viewpoints on offensiveness -- Tempting the laugh -- World-class jokes: Joke tellers on joke technique -- The importance of joke-work -- "Humor is humor": The incompatibility of humor and morals -- Conclusion: temptation, transgression, and joke quality -- Chapter 8. Sense and sociability -- Personal styles of joke tellers -- Avoiding or transgressing boundaries -- Specialists and generalists -- Transgression, identification, and Dutch joke culture(s) -- Young and old -- Men and women -- Non-college and college-educated people -- Conclusion: Mechanisms of taste and the sense of sociability -- Part III Comparing humor styles -- Chapter 9. National humor styles: Humor styles, joke telling and social background in the United States -- Researching humor styles in America -- Jokes and humor styles in the United States: Survey results -- Transgression and identification in American jokes -- American humorous identifications -- The social status of the joke in America -- American arguments against the joke -- American views on a good sense of humor -- "You gotta have a sense of humor": Humor and the moral self -- Conclusion: Telling a joke to save your life -- Chapter 10. Sociology and the joke -- The appreciation of jokes: Genre and individual jokes -- Style: Evaluating a humorous genre -- Form and content: Evaluating individual jokes -- Gender, age, class and nationality: The dynamics of social differences -- Gender and role -- Age and phase -- Class and culture -- National differences and cultural logics -- Distinction and difference -- Good humor and bad taste -- Appendix 1. The jokes used in the Dutch survey.

Appendix 2. Dutch humorists and television programs -- References -- Subject index.