this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025

348 points (93.7% liked)

Funny

12144 readers

1501 users here now

General rules:

Be kind.
All posts must make an attempt to be funny.
Obey the general sh.itjust.works instance rules.
No politics or political figures. There are plenty of other politics communities to choose from.
Don't post anything grotesque or potentially illegal. Examples include pornography, gore, animal cruelty, inappropriate jokes involving kids, etc.

Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

TheDude@sh.itjust.works

kersploosh@sh.itjust.works

example@reddthat.com

VicksVaporBBQrub@sh.itjust.works

348

Questions from Court (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 4 days ago by Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/funny@sh.itjust.works

39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 40 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] call_me_xale@lemmy.zip 141 points 3 days ago

My favorite (paraphrased):

Attorney: "You are absolutely certain that [victim] is dead?"

Coroner: "Yes."

Attorney: "Were you there at the time of death?"

Coroner: "No."

Attorney: "Then how can you be sure they're dead?"

Coroner: "Well, their brain is sitting in a jar on my desk, but I suppose the rest of them could be out practicing law somewhere."

[–] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 139 points 3 days ago (7 children)

I literally got this as a chain email 30 years ago.

[–] Carvex@lemmy.world 76 points 3 days ago

Subject:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd Hilarious!!!

[–] jared@mander.xyz 30 points 3 days ago

They try and keep it pretty fresh around here.

[–] Aedis@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And this is the world we got because you forgot to forward it to 30 people in the following ten seconds!

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago

dev.null1, dev.null2, dev.null3...

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago

The chain emails copied it out of Reader's Digest.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 3 days ago

I'm too young to have gotten chain emails 30 years ago, but https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/courtroom.quips.html may be from that era too.

[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I started going on the Net about 29 years ago and I'm not sure it was already around. But what I do know is that, to my great disappointment, the list has not grown with the years.

[–] Klear@quokk.au 3 points 3 days ago

I've seen a list with more than this. Like the question of "How far were the cars at the time of collision?"

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

I remember being on a joke email chain on AOL and if you didn't reply saying how funny it was you'd get blocked.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 50 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You forgot one of the best. A lot of these are kind of funny, but there is a certain amount of stupid sounding legwork that the attorney is obligated to do that they may slip into doing too much of just by habit. It's like the cops ask "And did he have your permission to punch you in the face? Did you consent to that?" They just have to cover the elements of the statute.

Anyway. From memory so the precise wording is not verbatim (I think this one's from a divorce trial):

Attorney: And did you ever have sex with him in Salt Lake City?

Witness: I'm not going to answer that question.

Attorney: Did you ever have sex with him in Miami?

Witness: I'm not going to answer that question.

Attorney: Did you ever have sex with him in Key Largo?

Witness: No.

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think I might be whooshing on why the exchange you shared is funny, or maybe I’m overthinking it?

[–] deltapi@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The "No" to key largo implies the other two were yesses

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago

Ah ok, thank you, I was definitely trying to way overthink it for some reason.

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 33 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Attorney: Were to present for your son's birth (asked of the biological mother). I believe I read this in "the coffee news" many years ago.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Vanessa: "My dad left before I was born!"

Deadpool: "My dad left before I was CONCEIVED!"

[–] m4xie@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

My dad left before he was born!

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Know your audience. You'd think attorneys were better at that, but I guess witnesses don't decide whether someone gets made attorney or not.

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think it's a funny meeting of worlds thing. Like the kinda of people who can afford law school are generally not the kinds who grew up in an every day setting

Colloquial speech vs professional jargon

[–] noodles@slrpnk.net 17 points 3 days ago

Also a lot of what (good) trial lawyers do is cover all the small loopholes, so questions that seem silly are because Dr X-acto got off on murder by claiming it was an autopsy in 1798 or whatever. Or it's a bad trial lawyer and it is silly.

[+] venusaur@lemmy.world -18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Is the first one not offensive to the Lemmy community?

[–] tlmcleod@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago

Even if you ignore the whole beard aspect, the witness started their first sentence with He. That alone makes the next question redundant anyway

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

can you elaborate on why it may be?

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Probably because some trans women have beards and the kind of person who would think that trans inclusiveness is a special Lemmy thing is often also the kind of person who doesn't bother to learn that sex, gender, and gender expression are different things and suspects that ignorance in jokes from a time where that ignorance was the norm to the point of being near-absolute is SUPER triggering to rational non-bigots? 🤷

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That run-on sentence hurts my brain while still explaining things. TIHI

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Sorry, I was on my way to bed so didn't give myself time to reformat it to something more reader-friendly

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works -4 points 3 days ago (4 children)

If sex and gender are two different things, can you define gender without referring to sex? Honest question

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

well written ☞ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%E2%80%93gender_distinction

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works -3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

This article refers to sex throughout its entirety; the ask was for a definition of gender without reference to sex

[–] alci@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago

I'm not very interested in these questions, but my understanding is that gender refers to a role in society, while sex is more qbout biology.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You should stick to designing coasts.

Unlike your award winning fjords, your sealioning is tiresome and unoriginal.

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Sealioning? Apologies, but I don't understand what you mean. May I trouble you to please elaborate?

[–] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Whether this was deliberate or not, it's still pretty funny.

I take it back, if it wasn't deliberate it would be especially funny.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

Here you go

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Of course.

Gender is a spectrum between feminine and masculine. It is determined by society and can change depending on when and where you live.

For example, a skirt is seen as something feminine. But go to Scotland and there it is something masculine instead.

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks. There's a lot of bad faith replies here; I appreciate the honest engagement. I get the feeling that we're heading into circular logic territory if we were to discuss what it means to be "masculine" or "feminine" in a gender-fluid, sex-abstracted context. It'd be best if we leave it here, as much as it pains me to stifle my own curiosity.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

They inform each other through culture, but they are not the same thing. Just like female lions do most of the hunting. To them, hunting might end up a feminine trait.

Centuries ago, it was expected for women to wear pants, now, not so much. In the Victorian era, men wore makeup too. The social expectations that inform gender change drastically. To be gender non-conforming can mean very different things in different societies. For example; David Bowie. In the Victorian era, he'd have barely stood out at all, besides his talents.

Sex is about the physical body, and gender is about self-identification. Social norms inform what attributes are attributed to what, but it is seldom (virtually never) anything set in stone.

On top of that, the more rigid society tries to be, the more room there is to be "different" and for people to not feel included by those rigid expectations. So the hilarious irony is, conservative shitheads trying to make everyone conform does the exact opposite of what they want; It creates more dejected and excluded people, who are then more likely to be anything but "normal".

[–] Brainsploosh@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

What?

Gender is the social expression of sex. Just as language is the social expression of biology. They are linked, yet have layers of abstraction inbetween.

You being the shit is similar to the feeling of excreting, yet is typically not how we map those.