I was telling a friend a joke today, or rather sending it via email, and I got a reply back: “You already told me that one.” At first I was chagrined at having to waste my friend’s time, but then I thought, “Wait a tick. Why did he say that?”
As far as I can see, such discourse always embarrasses the person who’s repeated himself. (I’m not saying that people do that on purpose, as some people just say “You told me that already” automatically.) And it seems totally unnecessary, as it adds nothing to the conversation except to assert—perhaps unconsciously—a form of dominance. After all, what, really, is the downside of listening to a short joke or something similar and pretending you hadn’t heard it before?
My own policy is to listen as if I hadn’t heard it before. I see nothing positive in telling somebody “You’ve already told me that” unless they’re relating a long story and you can save them time by saying you already heard it.
But perhaps I’m being too sensitive, or perhaps I should preface every joke or story by saying, “Stop me if you’ve heard this.”
Here’s something that I feel more strongly about: I have the same reaction when I have a question and, instead of answering it, the other person acts amazed that I don’t already know the answer, especially if I ask something about biology. (I will always ask if I don’t know a reference or a fact.) For example (I’ve made up this exchange):
Other person: “I found an insect in the Dermaptera.”
Me: “What’s the Dermaptera?”
Other person (shocked): “WHAT? You don’t know what the Dermaptera is?”
Me: “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you.”
(Dermaptera is the order that includes earwigs.)
This again seems to turn human discourse into a contest for dominance, causing unneeded embarrassment and shame rather than enlightenment.
I’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of exchange more times than I can count, but I persist in asking, for it’s the only way to learn. That’s why I tell my students at the beginning of every class, “If you don’t understand something, ask me. You won’t learn if you don’t ask. There are no stupid questions.”
When you get old enough, you really don’t trust your memory, and you regard your listener highly enough so that you don’t want to waste their time.
But you can’t say “stop me if you’ve heard this” when you’re emailing someone!
Well ask your friend how many times have I sent this? If your friend says “once”, then tell him you can send it to him a couple of more times before it gets repetitive.
With me the one that gets old is that everyone with a computer becomes an expert today. Look at what I know because I just looked it up on the tube so let me tell you all about it. Even when it is something within your life experience you must stand silent because they have it right here on the computer. It is the modern way of impressing that really impresses no one.
But the plus side is you can bore someone to tears, or have a little fun about the history of the personal computer.
When someone bemoans the scant few seconds it takes one to do something, you can tell them how long it used to take. Or about floppy discs. Or punch cards. Or having to carve roman numerals in stone.
Sub
Amen! My wisest teacher in medical school asked me if I knew such-and-such, which had just been mentioned. I said “No.” and then he immediately said, “You should ask about anything you don’t know.” I detailed that the usual medical professional would just tell me to go look it up later, and he was adamant that that was NOT the preferred response. He would answer any and all questions. A wise man. An internist (hematologist/oncologist).
I try to let these things slide off me like water off Honey’s back. Rude people are everywhere.
It is a shame though that this sort of response makes many people hesitant to ask questions and hence not to learn.
PS There are stupid questions. Like “Will this be on the test?” To which my answer was invariably “Anything I say might be on the test.”
My response to the question: “Will this be on the?” is always: “It is now”. This response is especially effective in front of the whole class.
That’s a good one! And is a disincentive for them to ask it again.
I sometimes say “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
I am not only hesitant, I definitely avoid asking questions. I prefer to search for the answers myself, or live without them.
There are no answers without questions. You may avoid verbally asking questions of others, but you still ask questions.
Yes, but Google does not tell me that I should know the answer.
🙂
https://xkcd.com/1053/
Yes, I’ve seen that one before….
… but I enjoyed being reminded about it.
That’s the way it’s done!
Agree! Always remember the FUN! and the sharing. NOT the bored one-upmanship.
Sometimes jokes improve with repetition. In college I had a friend who was a great language mimic. We’d all beg him to repeat the Swedish air ace interview “Fokker” joke.
It got better the more times he told it and the more beer we drank.
THAT’s what friends do!
One of the delights of reaching anecdotage is listening to and repeating old stories and jokes. I don’t mind being told I’m repeating myself but the temperature dies go down a notch
CORRECT! As you gather you know which joke old Bill is going to tell! And you listen.
Love “anecdotage” – gonna purloin it . .
I heard it about a Polish flier (I apologise I can’t do a Polish accent).
The Polish air ace is invited into class to talk about his experiences in the Battle of Britain. The air ace says to class:
I was flying back to the base vhen zees Fokkers came at me out of ze Sun.
There is tittering in the class, so the teacher says. Be quiet, a Fokker is a type of aeroplane*.
The air ace says “yeah, vell zees fokkers were in Messerschmitts”.
Is that the one?
*When I first heard this joke, being the aeroplane nerd I was, I was about to say “there were no Fokkers in the Battle of Britain.
Ha ha. That’s the one. There are variations. The one I heard was Edward R Murrow interviewing a Swedish air ace. It still breaks me up.
(Makes no sense since Sweden was neutral during the war.)
VIDEO: Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before by The Smiths, 1987.
The nerdy bit: Excellent ’60s-sounding ‘jangly’ Rickenbacker 330 6-string guitar by Johnny Marr. The visuals are of Salford, Manchester with Morrissey & a group of Morrissey lookalikes wearing prescription NHS spectacles cycling around notable [to some] locations such as Salford Lads’ Club.
Damn it, I was editing.
LOL
Great song.
Completely agree, Prof. Do these people really have so little time that they can’t be polite enough to listen for a few minutes.
When this happens to me, even though I’m a shy, bald Buddhist, the pain makes me reflect and plan a mass murder.
https://youtu.be/SckD99B51IA
Lol
Speaking only for myself, I would rather not be someone who unwittingly annoys his friends by telling the same jokes over and over. A friend who smiles and goes along with it does me a disservice by enabling the kind of behavior I want to avoid. The person who speaks up and warns me when I’m being a bore is a better friend from that perspective.
How about just saying, “yeah, that was a good one” and laughing all over again?
I don’t think listeners should feel obliged to fake a laugh just to spare the teller’s feelings.
I agree with you on both counts, Gregory.
Sometimes I feign a laugh to spare the teller’s feelings, out of politeness. But the knowledge that I’m effectively lying embarrasses me and probably makes my laughter unconvincing.
Also, some people can tell jokes and some can’t. Some people are so good they can make anything funny. And some are so bad… unfortunately Dunning-Kruger operates with them.
cr
I put all of the sort of negative feedback that you describe in the category of discourteous, impolite and generally obnoxious behavior. I do think, at least for some who exhibit such ill manners, that it is a power trip — as in, “I know something that you don’t (or that you once knew but have forgotten), therefore you are inferior to me.”
I hate it when people tell me I’ve missed a bit shaving. Unless they’re offering to lend me a razor, this is not helpful. Also, people who say ‘You look a bit red’. What do they expect me to say? ‘Thanks, yes I am feeling rather self conscious. I was hoping someone would draw attention to it.’ Finally, I hate this conversation, which is quite frequent:
Them: This reminds me of that scene in the movie X.
Me: I haven’t seen X.
Them: you must have seen X. Everyone has seen it.
Me: I really haven’t.
Them: But you must have. It’s the one with … etc.
When I was growing up, if we were in a group and my father realized he had just said something embarrassing, my mother would loudly announce “Your face is all red!” As if he didn’t know it and probably wanted to escape.
It’s interesting from the other perspective, too — when people who should be asking questions aren’t (because it implies ignorance). When they must ask a question they then quickly try to shut you down … yeah, yeah, yeah, they’ve got it, they’ve always gotten it actually (but they don’t because being on the receiving end of a description is just too demeaning).
But, I agree, “you already told me that” does not advance the ball downfield. It’s off-putting.
Also, for myself, I have to wonder what exactly is wrong with constantly repeating myself, telling the same jokes and stories over and over and over? Huh?
Please argue that case with my wife.
I would give your friend the benefit of the doubt, especially over email, where a lack of affect and inflection makes intent notoriously hard to read. That said, other variants of the “discourse as hidden dominance contest” dynamic:
– Asking ‘questions’ designed to show how smart or well-versed in the topic one is. (This is why I internally die inside a little at the end of conferences when they ask “Are there any questions?”. 50% will be of this nature, the other 50% will be totally specific to the personal problems of the person asking, and they will all take a long time.)
– Presenting some pet theory that the person happens to have heard of as Accepted Wisdom That Anyone Engaging With The Topic should know. Sometimes this comes from genuine cultishness (see: hardcore behaviorists), and sometimes it is random and arcane (someone busting out with a theory of archeology in a comments section or assuming you should know about the newest plastic additive someone somewhere says we are all supposed to be avoiding,) but the attitude is always that others are so wrong for not knowing ‘the truth’, which they are privy to.
On the bright side, strictly verbal peacocking and posturing probably result in fewer actual fistfights to resolve such emotions.
Something somewhat related: the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges asked a tour guide in Japan, “Is this Buddha made of wood?”, “Yes, sir”. A few moments later, another tourist, “What’s this Buddha made of?” (the same Buddha), “Bronze, sir”. (I don’t know if it’s true)
I think there is something special about fresh versus repeated jokes. A joke largely relies on surprise in order to be funny. I rarely find myself naturally laughing the second time I hear a joke. I don’t want to fake a laugh, but I also don’t want to offend the teller by not laughing. Saying “I heard that one already” or “You told me that one already” in a polite tone explains why I didn’t laugh as the teller expected me to.
And yet Henny Youngman got laughs every time with “Take my wife. (Pause) Please!”
“A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so he gave him another six months. “
Only worked once for me….
I just flew in and happened to read this. Boy are my arms tired!
Hard to tell. In one sense you may be doing the person a service by feedback repetitious/forgetful behavior, so they can monitor themselves. On the other hand, you don’t really need to do it on social media since they can check themselves from time to time.
The WEIT site often repeats the day after, but one cause – that does not need to be pointed out each time – is the many sources/writers that mix in and out.
On the balance, I have stopped responding to reading repetitions, I just skip them. I still find myself noting when people *tell* me something they told before, maybe to feedback to myself rather than to them.
My position is not to care about what other people may think. Life then has a beautiful serenity.
Think about about it – most people don’t know what they really think and are unconsciously motivated by their own insecurities. If human sociality is a game of dominance then not playing is the way to win (as if that matters).
Rz
I’m with you. And serenity is very important. It’s under-rated.
When I was about 25 I asked my doctor about a lump that I was worried about. He said “Oh, it’s an epididymal cyst.” I asked “What’s that?” He looked at me as if I was stupid and said “It’s a cyst on the epididymis.”
At least now I know the best response to someone like this. I will look surprised and say “What, you still don’t know that Professor Ceiling Cat says you should never talk to people like this???”
Good for ceiling cat. A doctor that looks at anyone as though they are stupid is a stupid doctor.
I have from time to time asked questions of such mind-boggling stupidity that they’re embarrassing to think about even months later. I greatly appreciate that the people being asked have usually just taken a deep breath and answered seriously. I try to remember to do that with people who ask me questions.
I remember the stupid questions I have asked far more vividly than the good ones I’ve asked. There must be an evolutionary reason.
I’ve never agreed with the cliche, “There are no stupid questions.” There is a nearly infinite number of stupid questions. Here’s one: “How fast does the Sun revolve around a stationary Earth?” The point, however, is that stupid questions are nevertheless worth asking. As Dr. Coyne implies, even stupid questions can be useful to both the student and teacher in that they help gauge the level of student knowledge. So they should be encouraged, but not defined out of existence.
When I hire student workers, I say “This is complicated. You can’t learn it all at once. Ask questions! If you don’t ask questions, I will know you aren’t paying attention.”
And then I thank them for asking, even repeatedly. I’ve learned that if they don’t ask, that means I’ll have to go back and fix whatever they did wrong.
It could be valuable feedback. It’s also pretty much in spirit of Paul Grice’s Maxims of good communication (cooperative principle), which are the maxims of quantity (amount), quality (truth), relevance (pertinence), and manners (clarity).
I agree, however, that it is perhaps impolite, and could be conveyed better. You can say “ah that joke!” and indicate that you’ve heard it before.
‘You can say “ah that joke!” and indicate that you’ve heard it before.’
Or, say the punchline in chorus with the joke-teller? 😉
(Or for maximum impact, say the punchline half a second before the joke-teller gets to it. But that should, really, be reserved for about the third or fourth repetition of the joke…)
cr
If it’s a good joke repeated I find myself saying “yeah that’s a good one” with a grin. If it’s a long story I usually say something like, i think you have told me about that, it did not sound like a good experience. To help soften the cutting short, possibly discuss points to keep the dialogue going. If I’m tired or distracted I can be curt which makes me more irritable, lol… no winners there.
My Mom used to tell the same stories over again so many times, we, her kids, numbered them. Now that I’m about the age my Mom was then, I think my kids are probably numbering my stories.
Remember, if you use numbers to save repeating the words, you still have to tell it right.
May I ask what the joke is? I bet I haven’t heard it before. Even if I did, I probably have forgotten whom I heard it from.
Other person (shocked): “WHAT? You don’t know what the Dermaptera is?”
Me: “No. So what is it?”
I don’t think it was a joke. PCC segued into another topic. But here is a punchline.
Other person: Didn’t you ‘ear me? It’s earwigs.
hehehe!
A related issue that always bothers me is when I’m in a discussion, and I make a statement, someone who disagrees with me starts a long, hearty laugh ridiculing my statement.
Me: We have to remember there are three rules dealing with this kind of action.
Other: Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! No, no, no! Prof. Schwartz says there are dozens of rules for this kind of action! Ha-ha-ha!
Really, if you disagree with me, then be polite and simply say you disagree, then we can calmly discuss why I’m wrong.
Note that my father used to do this to me regularly, so maybe that’s why I’m sensitive to it. Although in his case it was mostly a matter of “kids say the funniest things!” (even when I was thirty years old).
Ah yes, the ridicule offensive. Becoming more prevalent, it seems. The academic world is a microcosm of the biological world. It has it all—aggression, predation, parasitism, territoriality—you name it.
The only stupid question is the unasked one.
I disagree, there are stupid questions, in two main categories:
1 – questions you already know the answer to, or could answer easily without resorting to Wikipedia
2 – questions that you know cannot have an answer -or at least not an answer that could possibly make any sense.
One possibility is that the person is just rude. The other possibility is that you have often been telling this person stories repeatedly, to the point that it has become quite irritating to them, and pointing it out is actually a fairly polite way of saying “I think you are not paying enough attention to our conversations; please pay more attention and try to remember what we have talked about, because you are boring me with your repetitions.”
‘This again seems to turn human discourse into a contest for dominance, causing unneeded embarrassment and shame rather than enlightenment.’
Sure, many conversations go like that. Language is a way of expressing emotion as well as being a medium for enlightening discourse. I enjoy both.
There can also be pedantic answers:
Other person: “I found an insect in the Dermaptera.”
Me: “What’s the Dermaptera?”
Other person: “Dermaptera? Literally ‘skinwings’ aka Earwigs. They make up their own insect order and are found throughout the Americas, Africa, Eurasia, Australia and New Zealand. With about 2,000 species in 12 families, they are one of the smaller insect orders. Earwigs have characteristic cerci, a pair of forceps pincers on their abdomen, and membranous wings folded underneath a short fold, hence the scientific order name, ‘skin wings’. Some groups are tiny parasites on mammals and lack the typical pincers. Earwigs rarely use their flying ability.”
It would objectively be a good answer to give, but would it not be worse? 🙂
“You already told me that one.” At first I was chagrined at having to waste my friend’s time, but then I thought, “Wait a tick. Why did he say that?”
He said it, quite obviously, because you’d already told him that one. He probably said it reflexively, without pondering the options of how not to hurt your feelings. Not every utterance is carefully though out beforehand for its possible impact on the listener.
cr
I think part of that is that sometimes people expect authorities/bosses to be omniscient. Like how Trump likes to pretend he is omniscient about everything. Nope we’re all only human.
It becomes painful when the person tells you something he just told you 10min ago, and this becomes a frequent occurrence. This is the situation with an old friend and colleague, and I sense that it’s a harbinger of his mental decline.
10 minutes? And frequently? That is not a harbinger, but a clear sign of full-blown dementia (unless drunk), nearly pathognomonic.
I have a favorite joke I tell every couple of years or so, apparently to the same unfortunate person.
After I’ve retold the joke for the Xth time, she either says “that gets funnier every time you tell it” or “that never gets old”–just in case I need a reminder that I’ve already told her the joke. This is why I can ignore the fact that she’s a right-wing nut job, and why we’ve been friends for decades.
Re: ‘Other person (shocked): “WHAT? You don’t know what the Dermaptera is?”
Me: “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you.”’
I’ve probably told this here before. I let it slip before a group of several that I was not familiar with the Beatles song, “Because.”
(I know the Dave Clark 5 “Because,” and the semi-classical/sacred art song “Because” by Guy d’Hardelot. “Because, you come to me, With naught save love,
And hold my hand and lift mine eyes above . . . .” But that apparently didn’t count for much to my two below interrogators who, quite religious, I suspected were quite likely Young Creationists.)
TWO Interrogators (Shocked! Shocked!): “WHAT? You don’t know “Because” by The Beatles?? And you grew up then!!” (My first impression was that they were channelling their peer pressuring inner middle schooler bully.)
It ticked me off, but I did not respond much at that moment because the group was in the middle of a task that had to be accomplished, though the interrogators themselves didn’t mind bringing it to a temporary halt, so exercised were they about my ignorance. (I did mutter – unheard – under my breath, “Ah, the Argument from Personal Incredulity!”)
I confess to continuing to stew about it, and a couple weeks later I confronted the two interrogators. One said, “It was just a statement!”
Me: “Every utterance is a statement, as far as that goes. You were evaluating me to my face about my inadequacy regarding matters Beatle. I’ll take one nanosecond and feel guilty about it. And should I have called 911 or gotten the smelling salts for you? Could I have possibly known beforehand what your response would be I would not have mentioned my ignorance. Should I have lied about knowing the song so as to avoid your fatuous, conceited, bloviating opprobrium and faux shock? Do you expect everyone to know every bloody Beatles song? What ought I reasonably expect YOU to know?”
(Well, I didn’t say quite all that quite like that, but I got the message across.)
I sometimes begin by saying I may have told you thus joke before but. That usually gets a smile as the person’s lets me proceed.
Listening to someone who enjoys telling the same story over and over is a polite and enjoyable thing to do.
I sometimes say “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
Reblogged this on jtveg's Blog and commented:
“…unless they’re relating a long story and you can save them time by saying you already heard it”.
Always a caveat.