The Glass Half Question

NOTE: I first found the ‘Glass-Half-Question Joke’ in as a child, in Gary Larson’s The Far Side. At its simplest, the joke was generally structured in threes. First the optimist, then the pessimist, then a third classification that was the punchline. Some had four or five, each punchline building on the last. I had collected one or two of these through college that I had found quite funny, and then just started writing them down whenever I found them. These are the only ones that stuck around, and so I’ve posted them here. As a side-note, the final classification has had multiple labels…anyone you want to mock with having a blue-collar job, really: teenagers, history-majors, single-parents, recent college-graduates…the possibilities to call people inferior are endless!

Optimist: This glass is half full.

Pessimist: This glass is half empty.

Idealist: This glass can have twice as much as it has now.

Pragmatist: This glass has liquid in it.

Nihilist: It doesn’t matter how full the glass is.

Scientist: This glass has half as much liquid as it can hold.

Engineer: That glass is twice as tall as it needs to be.

Reporter: I will tell you how full the glass is.

Philosopher: How do you know how full the glass is?

Rabbi: Who am I to say how full the glass is?

Antiestablishmentarianist: Who do I have to be to say how full the glass is?

Orson Wells: I am half as drunk as I’m going to be.

Minimalist: I’m not thirsty.

Solipsist: I’m half full.

Fascist: This glass is mine.

Fatalist: This glass is exactly the way it has to be.

Taoist: This glass is fine the way it is.

Buddhist: What glass?

Jesus Christ: Drink of this glass, it is my blood.

Vampire: I will drink of this glass, it is your blood.

Absurdist: This glass is half lobster.

Artist: Can I get you a refil?