# pickled vs buried



## ideys

Hi，I am reading a little joke, i can understand the facial meaning of it , but can't understand why it is funny - laughable.

The story basciallly goes like this,

A family is having supper, but is continously interrupted by someone phoning to sell burial plot.

Finally  the mother answered the salesman : You see , we're not going to be buried. We're going to be pickled."

Why it's humorous when pickled and buried are used together? Could anybody make a statement?


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## Hermione Golightly

I have no idea unless the family is drinking heavily. 'Pickled' can mean 'drunk' as well as being preserved in alcohol, or more usually in vinegar.
'Buried' means placing a dead body in the ground, inhumation.


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## suzi br

It’s not obviously funny to me. 
Pickling is a way of preserving something. It is not a conventional way of dealing with dead bodies. Maybe that’s the bit that is meant to be funny? 
It’s not worth much more of your time, really. It’s not an everyday context.


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## sdgraham

suzi br said:


> It’s not obviously funny to me.
> Pickling is a way of preserving something. It is not a conventional way of dealing with dead bodies. Maybe that’s the bit that is meant to be funny?
> It’s not worth much more of your time, really. It’s not an everyday context.


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## dojibear

"That is so not funny!" as we say in AE.


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## MattiasNYC

Where is this joke from? If the joke had its origins in Scandinavia there might actually be some 'logic' to the joke. 

Some fish in Scandinavia is indeed pickled, like herring. Then there's "gravlax", which is a Salmon which traditionally was buried in a brine for some time. "grav" in Swedish translated to "grave".

Not a particularly funny joke either way I think.


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## ideys

It's from an old Reader's Digest, it's amazing that you guys don't think it's good English. 
There should be no problem with the language, 
Maybe I understood it wrong, it is not a joke at all???
But it should be a joke , because I cannot think of anything else it could be.


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## entangledbank

It's good English. There's nothing wrong with the English. It just doesn't make much sense as a joke.


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## suzi br

Humour is an intangible thing. When yoy say “old” how old do you mean?

The English is fine. It’s just not very funny but maybe the images help. I can’t even imagine anyone using telephone sales for burial plots. Honestly, you need not waste your time on this ephemeral thing.


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## Barque

The joke lies in the mother trying to get rid of the caller by saying something nonsensical, but which isn't completely unsuited to the context.

As others have said above, pickling is a method of preservation, while burial is a method of disposal. She's saying they don't need burial plots because they aren't going to be buried. And why aren't they going to be buried? Because they're going to be pickled. I obviously have a less sophisticated sense of humour than those who've answered so far, because it made me smile.


ideys said:


> i can understand the facial meaning of it


You mean you can understand the literal meaning, or the meaning taken at face-value. The adjective "facial" means "of/relating to the face" and isn't appropriate for what you mean.


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## Andygc

ideys said:


> It's from an old Reader's Digest


It's a Reader's Digest joke. Don't expect to be rolling on the floor laughing. 


Barque said:


> And why aren't they going to be buried? Because they're going to be pickled. I obviously have a less sophisticated sense of humour than those who've answered so far, because it made me smile.


Exactly.   The Reader's Digest never was sophisticated. I used to laugh at _Humour in Uniform_ and_ Life's Like That _when I was a young teenager.


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## Uncle Jack

The _Reader's Digest_ used to set a pretty low bar for readers' contributions, but even so, I cannot help thinking you have omitted to tell us an important bit of information that the joke relies on. Hermione in post #2 points out that "pickled" has two meanings, which I could easily imagine the joke hinges upon, but there is nothing in what you have told us that suggests drunkenness.


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## london calling

Well, when Admiral Nelson's corpse was transported from Trafalgar to the UK it was preserved in brandy....

Not that I find the joke amusing.


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## kentix

Was it a small joke all by itself or was it part of a longer story?


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## Hermione Golightly

It crossed my mind too that I have never ever heard of anybody being called by a burial plot salesman and never heard of one either. Perhaps it happens or used to happen in the USA where, I believe, cremation is not as common as it is in the UK.
We are all baffled, so forget it.


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## kentix

It would not surprise me if it happened in the U.S. in the past. It's similar to life insurance. People would call trying to sell life insurance. They still do today with those automated calling systems.

See this that I just found. It's from the mid '90s:

_One day, next to the sleazy personals in the back of the Portland Mercury, I saw an ad for telemarketers.... I was a little suspicious of the ad, which offered no details about the actual job.

The job was selling cemetery plots over the phone. Essentially, the worst telemarketing job you could possibly imagine.

My Summer Selling Death_


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## london calling

I suppose anything is possible. Here in Italy I've seen adverts for 'special offers' on funerals.


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## ideys

Is it possible that Pickled implies that the salesman is annoying in a less aggressive way?

The date of the book is 1991.

We take Reader's Digest as a kind of authoritive source of English language, so I am trying best to understate its implications, in stead of critisizing it .

There is nothing in regard to drunkness.


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## Keith Bradford

I can imagine an exasperated woman saying something like that.  I often say the most ridiculous things to telephone salesmen just to get them to go away.  "A burial scheme?  Certainly, my mother-in-law needs burying, but she's not dead yet.  Can you arrange it all the same?  How quickly?  I'll pay cash, no questions asked..."

But you have to say it earnestly, in a serious voice.


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## kentix

Is there a picture and can you tell what they are eating for dinner?


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## AnythingGoes

ideys said:


> Is it possible that Pickled implies that the salesman is annoying in a less aggressive way? *No.*
> 
> The date of the book is 1991.
> 
> We take Reader's Digest as a kind of authoritive source of English language, so I am trying best to understate its implications, in stead of critisizing it .
> 
> There is nothing in regard to drunkness.


I've underlined three words you might like to look up.

_Reader's Digest _used to publish a lot of stuff in its humor columns which was barely funny, if at all, so it's not surprising you've found a joke there which doesn't seem funny to us. I don't think the joke's author intended _pickled_ to be a double entendre; it's just supposed to be funny that someone told a telemarketer their family intended to have their remains treated in a very unusual way.


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## ideys

Special offers on funerals, this makes me laugh indeed! They are really kind.......


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## london calling

ideys said:


> 1. Is it possible that Pickled implies that the salesman is annoying in a less aggressive way?
> 
> The date of the book is 1991.
> 2. We take Reader's Digest as a kind of *authoritative* source of English language...



1. I wouldn't have said so, no.
2. Really? I've always dismissed it , to be perfectly honest. To me it has always represented the ultimate dumbing-down of  English language and literature. Call me a snob, if you will.


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## ideys

No food mentioned.

My summer selling death, is this a novel?

Perhaps it's the most famouse English magazine in China.

Thanks for correcting my mistakes!


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## kentix

It's an article on a website, sort of like an online magazine.


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## london calling

I wouldn't ever say that to you, Veli.

The condensed versions of (whatever) are the ones that really get my goat. Shakespeare (for example) is not just about a story: it's language, it's poetry, and all of that is lost. I dismissed it at a very early age when I came across some at a friend's house  but got well stuck into the Encyclopaedia Britannica which I found in the library at school.

Anyway we're way off topic here.

To get back on topic: the English is fine but it isn't funny, as has been said.


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## Barque

ideys said:


> We take Reader's Digest as a kind of authoritive source of English language, so I am trying best to understate its implications, in stead of critisizing it .


As you've been told a few times on this thread, there's nothing wrong with the quality of the English used.


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## ideys

Thanks everyone for all these replies!  I am now rolling on the floor laughing now!
There is an important clue for the humor hidden in the story， which i overlooked from the very beginning.
The family’s surname is Dills. 
And sorry for my poor English, sometimes i cannot express myself very well , maybe some misunderstandings!


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## london calling

Oh well, that explains it....

Not particularly funny in any case.


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## AnythingGoes

ideys said:


> There is an important clue for the humor hidden in the story， which i overlooked from the very beginning.
> The family’s surname is Dills.


With that detail added, it becomes a not-entirely-unfunny joke.

Remember to capitalize the word _I_ every time you type it.


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## MattiasNYC

ideys said:


> There is an important clue for the humor hidden in the story， which i overlooked from the very beginning.
> The family’s surname is Dills.



Right... dill is used to pickle herring...


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## JulianStuart

MattiasNYC said:


> Right... dill is used to pickle herring...


Dill is used in pickling cucumbers in the US - just google "dill pickles" - they are very common. So much so that if you say "woud you like a pickle", most will think of a dill pickle (d cucumber).


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## kentix

Exactly. Believe me, American Reader's Digest families aren't pickling herring. Or eating it, as a rule. They are eating dill pickles, which are cucumbers.

Added: "American" added for specificity

According to this site:
The 5 Most Popular Types of Pickles, Explained

The  top five pickle varieties (not all use dill) in the U.S. are:

Dill pickles
Kosher dill pickles
Sweet pickles
Bread and butter pickles
Gherkins


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## heypresto

In BE, the joke might work better with a family called the Eels, with Mrs Edna Eel saying "You see, we're not going to be buried. We're going to be jellied." 


(This could run and run)


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## suzi br

heypresto said:


> In BE, the joke might work better with a family called the Eels, with Mrs Edna Eel saying "You see, we're not going to be buried. We're going to be jellied."
> 
> 
> (This could run and run)



This really did make me LOL. 

Perhaps the OP would have seemed funnier if the DILL thing had been obvious from the start!


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## Hermione Golightly

If we had known the name of the family, the joke would have been immediately obvious to our American friends and to those of us who know something about American food items.
This a a good example of the importance of detailed context.
I think most Brits know what a gherkin is.


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## AnythingGoes

heypresto said:


> In BE, the joke might work better with a family called the Eels, with Mrs Edna Eel saying "You see, we're not going to be buried. We're going to be jellied."
> 
> 
> (This could run and run)


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## AnythingGoes

Hermione Golightly said:


> If we had known the name of the family, the joke would have been immediately obvious to our American friends and to those of us who know something about American food items.
> This a a good example of the importance of detailed context.


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## Myridon

Hermione Golightly said:


> If we had known the name of the family, the joke would have been immediately obvious to our American friends and to those of us who know something about American food items.


The joke was immediately obvious to me from the beginning. Adding "Dill" makes it painfully obvious.  
I think there must be several cultural barriers.  Burial is a method of preservation not disposal. We fill our dead with preservatives, put them in hermetically sealed steel coffins and bury them in concrete vaults - they are not going anywhere. Someone mentioned cremation as if that did away with burial plots.  The last funeral I went to was for cremains.


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## ideys

I don't think jellied is more suitabe in this context, because pickled relates to dead body preservation while jellied does not，if I understand it right. Maybe better, we are not going to be sliced, we are going to be jellied, if having some suitable context, it will be very funny! I am trying to think one out now.


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## JulianStuart

ideys said:


> I don't think jellied is more suitabe in this context, because pickled relates to dead body preservation while jellied does not，if I understand it right. Maybe better, we are not going to be sliced, we are going to be jellied, if having some suitable context, it will be very funny! I am trying to think one out now.


Perhaps this might throw some light on the reason jellied eels came into existence:


> We’ve mentioned jellied eels so let’s begin with those. The River Thames, which runs through London, used to be so polluted that nothing but eels could survive in there. Poorer river workers would eat a lot of eels. However, this was in the days before refrigeration so *the eels would have to be* smoked or *encased in gelatin to remain preserved*.



Aspic is a form of gelatin and was used for the same purpose:


> Aspic, when used to hold meats, prevents them from becoming spoiled. The gelatin keeps out air and bacteria, keeping the cooked meat fresh.[5]



So, even though jellying may not preserve items as long as pickling, for the Eel family, "We're not going to be buried we're going to be jellied" is actually _identical_ in funniness to the Dills and pickling


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## kentix

Yes, they are both ways to preserve food. Maybe the Salt family will be salted and hung from pegs.


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## heypresto

We can pass swiftly over the Onion family, but we mustn't forget the Herring family. Mrs Harriet Herring blah blah blah kippered.


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