ANCIENT ETHNIC JOKES.

ANCIENT ETHNIC JOKES. My Danish grandfather apparently came from a part of Denmark that jokes were made about. I heard my mother refer to the area as “maw bu.” The joke she gave as an example was about the three men from maw bu who were out in a boat and had to pinch each other’s legs to find out whose legs were whose. THE PHILOGELOS, according to Mary Beard’s review, has jokes about how stupid people from Abdera, Kyme, and Sidon were.