Off-color humor
The term off-color humor (also known as dirty jokes or blue humor) is an
Americanism used to describe various
jokes,
prose,
poems,
black comedy and
skits that deal with topics that are considered to be in poor taste or overly vulgar by the prevailing
morals in a
culture. Most commonly labelled as "off-color" are acts concerned with
sex, a particular
ethnic group, or
gender. Other off-color topics include:
violence, particularly
domestic abuse; excessive
swearing; "
toilet humor";
national superiority or
inferiority,
dead baby jokes,
pedophilic content, and any other topics generally considered
impolite or
indecent. Generally, the point of off-color humor is to induce laughter by evoking a feeling of shock and surprise in the comedian's audience. In this way, "blue" humor is related to other forms of
postmodern humor, such as the
anti-joke.
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off-color
Adjective
1. in violation of good taste even verging on the indecent; "an indelicate remark"; "an off-color joke"
(synonym) indelicate, off-colour
(similar) tasteless, in poor taste(p)
2. humorously vulgar; "bawdy songs"; "off-color jokes"; "ribald language"
(synonym) bawdy, ribald
(similar) dirty
off-color
in bad taste, rude, dirty He told an off-color joke at the party that made his wife very angry.