bad joke

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

bad joke (plural bad jokes)

1. (idiomatic) A situation that is badly planned, or illogical.

   Mayor Smith's new traffic rules were a bad joke.

   • 1938, Robert William Seton-Watson, Britain and the Dictators: A Survey of Post-war British Policy, page 172:

     Disarmament must be total, or it was merely "a bad joke".

   • 1940, Kenelm Foss, Here Lies Richard Brinsley Sheridan, page 267:

     But it is amusing to note that whenever the tables were turned on him he would mutter "Bad joke. Very bad joke".

   • 1986, Claire Martin, The Legacy, page 25:

     "Maybe it was just a bad joke. " "A bad joke!" shrieked David, and in that cry I could detect all the ancient terrors of Israel.

   • 2002, Mikael af Malmborg, Bo Stråth, The Meaning of Europe, page 272:

     It is this bad joke which, almost one century later, was still to be found in the government's campaign of 'We are Europe' from 1994.

   • 2002, Cesar Guerra, Hijacked to Havana!, page 28:

     This might be a bad joke for you and to the people able to fly back to Miami but this is not a joke at all to me.

   • 2007, Keith Olbarmann, Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

     Upon seeing Keyes' face, 15 MSNBC executives promptly resigned. Alan Keyes? Alan Keyes Is Making Sense Alan Keyes? You've gotta be kidding me. Incidentally, the name of that show always seemed like a bad joke to me.

   • 2020 December 30, Christian Wolmar, “An annus horribilis... and 2021 looks just as bleak”, in Rail, page 35:

     Perhaps if he spent less time putting really bad jokes on Twitter (How should you drain pasta at Christmas? Use an Advent Colander - yes really!), the minister might know what is happening in his Department.

Translations

situation

• Finnish: huono pila
• French: travail d’Arabe (fr) m
• Serbo-Croatian: неслана шала f