The Joke Workshop : Module 2 : Word Play

Take for example my first sentence.  In particular the phrase, "works outing".  A traditional image of  employees enjoying a coach trip out together at the company's expense.  However, in recent years "outing" has taken on a whole new meaning.  Taking advantage of that double meaning I offer the following:

A coach pulls in along Blackpool sea front and as the passengers start to get off a bloke with a clipboard and megaphone starts shouting  "He's gay!" or "She's a lesbian!" or "They're both as bent as a nine pound note!"
A passer-by can't believe what he's seeing and asks a passenger what's going on.
The passenger says, "It's the works outing."

That one I borrowed from The Jester by way of illustration.  Now let's see if we can create something original.  We just need a word or phrase to kick us off, and here are one or two I prepared earlier.  If you could just hand me that one.  Thank you. 

Here we are, "precaution".  Now I thought of this one while filing down some old hospital jokes.  Hospitals have a language all their own when describing the condition of patients, and comedians have always pounced on these for material.  Such as :

A stable lad was rushed to hospital after receiving a very nasty kick in the stalls.
Doctors say he's holding his own.

or

A man was rushed to hospital after swallowing a cushion.
A hospital spokesman described his condition as 'comfortable'.

With that theme running in the background, what can we do with 'precaution'.  Playing word association, the first thing that springs to mind is 'the pill' or 'condom'.  They are not necessarily what you first thought of, but me, my mind works along predefined lines.

Given the fact that inanimate objects quite regularly walk into bars in jokes, there is nothing to stop us combining 'condom' with 'hospital' and producing something like:

A condom was rushed to hospital after cracking a rib.
Doctors said they were keeping it in overnight as a precaution.

My second example uses a sound-alike.   Thanks to this wonderfully quirky language we enjoy we have this combination of letters; T - E - A - R, which could be a rip in a fabric, or, with a different pronunciation, is moisture from our eyes.  It's that second 'tear' I'm going to use, together with 'tier', meaning a row or level.   Now, let's do a bit of word association with tear and up pops 'tear gas'.  Just pass me the hammer and I'll quickly bash this one into shape.  There.

Voila!  Creating jokes is not that difficult, thanks to a language blessed with so many odd spell-alikes and sound -alikes.  Here endeth the second Module.  Time to open a fresh packet of digestives I think.

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Move on to Module 3  -  Q and A