In this joke, a false inference was drawn out by speaker B that Jenny did fall out of the window from an extreme altitude, leaving very little chance of her survival. In fact, this inference was reasonably resulted from the fact that speaker A, when giving the shocking news, failed to provide the full story of what happened and tried to hide the crucial detail
“she fell inside”. That is to say, the given information was intentionally inadequate and less details were spoken than are required, which simply serves as the funniness source of joke (51).
Similar cases can be found in jokes (52) and (53) that follow:
(52) Two farmers had known each other all their lives, but their conversations were usually restricted to “Good morning” or “Nice day.” One afternoon, however, the first farmer asked:
“Hi, Pete, what did you give your horse when he had the colic?”
“Turpentine,” said Pete.
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Two weeks later they met again.
“Didn‟t you tell me, Pete, that you gave your horse turpentine when he had the colic?”
“Yes,” said Pete.
“Well, I gave mine turpentine and he died.”
“So did mine,” said Pete.
(53) A man who has lost his door key is caught by a policeman climbing in through the window, and invites the policeman in to prove it is really his home.
“This is my living room,” he says, switching on the lights boldly; and this is my six-thousand dollar Spanish living-room suit.” And so on continuing through the whole house, including the bedroom, where a man and a woman are discovered making love passionately on the bed. “And this is my carved French bedstead, and that‟s my wife,” finishes the man. “Now let‟s go downstairs and have some coffee.”
They do downstairs, and as they are drinking the coffee, the policeman can‟t prevent himself from bursting out, “But what about that guy up in the bedroom on top of your wife?”
“Oh, him?” says the man, “to hell with him! Let him make his own coffee!”
(Legman, 1975:73, adapted by Lew, 1996) In joke (52), it is not difficult to understand that the first farmer actually wants to know about how to treat a kind of disease that his horse has to suffer from by asking for help from Pete. Nevertheless, this important information has been left out from the actual question by the first farmer, which should have been “what did you give your horse when he had the colic to cure him?” Similarly, Pete, when giving the information about the medicine “Turpentine”, says less than he himself is aware. As the story proceeds, it is believed that Pete‟s short information should have been “Turpentine but it did not work.”
These two missing pieces of information in the question and response have in fact led to the death of the two horses and laugh from readers as well.
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Exactly the same is joke (53), which makes fun of the foolish husband who intentionally ignores his wife‟s love affair when calmly introducing the wife on bed without mentioning the guy with her. It is his missing information about this guy in his utterance that makes the policeman curious about “what to do with the couple”. Yet, when his response to the policeman‟s question is given, once again, he, on purpose, leaves out the details about the love affair of the wife and merely gives information of “what to do” in temporary context of making coffee.
3.2.4.2. Violating the maxim of Quality
In the maxim of Quality, a speaker is required not to say what he thinks untrue nor offer the information he does not mean. Nevertheless, in joke (54) following, the intended message by the departing traveler of the boy taking back the umbrella that he has left behind is given in the form of an order, which has nothing to do with what he means and misleads the boy.