90

What is the point of this joke?

— "What do you call two crows on a branch?"
— "Attempted murder."

I've googled it to check if it was a word play but the closest one I've hit was "marauder". Someone care to explain?

Konrad Viltersten
  • 2,266
  • 8
  • 28
  • 38
  • 20
    Check for less common senses of 'murder'. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 04 '14 at 20:38
  • 26
    So the branch is not a crow bar? – Erik Kowal Sep 04 '14 at 22:08
  • 13
    This has always been one of my favourite jokes (especially in the Internet version where it's a picture of two crows with the caption “Attempted murder”), along with the one that's a picture of a bunch of very blond lions basking in the sun captioned “White pride”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 04 '14 at 22:14
  • man what a coincidence. I was talking about this just yesterday – jhocking Sep 05 '14 at 00:01
  • 1
    @EdwinAshworth No reference to the necessary meaning until #7 (Wordnik) in the onelook list. – bib Sep 05 '14 at 00:24
  • No. 3 on AHDEL; also under 'Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms' at thefreedictionary; no. 5 at Wiktionary ... – Edwin Ashworth Sep 05 '14 at 01:51
  • @EdwinAshworth Trying to confirm, but Yahoo has been totally unreliable in access recently. – bib Sep 05 '14 at 02:38
  • 3
    @JanusBahsJacquet That sense of humor is best appreciated when no more than two fishes are swimming aside one another: during preschool. – Will Sep 05 '14 at 02:38
  • 3
    If a "group" of crows is a murder, then wouldn't two crows be a manslaughter? :-) – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Sep 05 '14 at 02:45
  • 3
    I don't think this deserves to be closed. It's true the solution can be found in references, but only if you know what you're looking for in advance. – augurar Sep 05 '14 at 04:20
  • 24
    Voting to reopen. The help pages specifically say that jokes that don't rely on the English language are off topic; this is a joke that does rely, very much, not just on the English language, but on a somewhat erudite aspect of it. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 05 '14 at 06:31
  • @jhocking Are you perhaps a 9gagger? That's where I saw it - yesterday... – Konrad Viltersten Sep 05 '14 at 09:08
  • @EdwinAshworth I did a mistake once in the past not to check the "hidden" meaning of "shot". After that I swore to always google for obvious words. I just missed to google all obvious words. One wonders why, oh why, it's called "murder" when it comes to birdies. Seems like an explanation of etymology would be in place on Wikipedia... – Konrad Viltersten Sep 05 '14 at 09:37
  • @Will I googled "pride" with lions. Apparently "pride" is "murder" for birdies, haha - Didn't know that! However, I didn't get anything for the fishies. Care to give a hint? – Konrad Viltersten Sep 05 '14 at 09:40
  • 10
    Same thing: a group of fish is called a school of fish, so two would be kind of like preschool (training to be a proper school). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 05 '14 at 10:13
  • More like pre in the literal Latin sense of before, and --by extention-- not yet. Two fishes do not quite yet a school of fish make, in the same sense that preschool isn't quite yet "real" school. But otherwise, yeah... – Will Sep 05 '14 at 10:26
  • 2
    If you give away a group of ferrets, what do you call them? None of your business. – Digital Chris Sep 05 '14 at 13:14
  • 1
    Here's the whole list – Digital Chris Sep 05 '14 at 13:15
  • How did this suddenly stop being genref? Has AHDEL disappeared? – Edwin Ashworth Sep 05 '14 at 13:59
  • @EdwinAshworth If we go by the community's opinion (which it's often referred to as a trustable judge), it's apparently interesting enough to the wide audience. It's kind of funny because when I remark that a question is locked or closed without grounds, I often get to hear "if it's good enough it'll be reopen by the popular vote". I still claim that it's not such an obvious thing as it may appear to some folks with more sophisticated linguistic skills. – Konrad Viltersten Sep 05 '14 at 19:28
  • @Konrad Viltersten: In that case, shouldn't it be moved to ELL? – Edwin Ashworth Sep 06 '14 at 18:22
  • @EdwinAshworth I see your point. I'd say that there's something to it. However, the discussion that arose brought also cultural aspect and a range of references to other knowledge, making it a valuable article. My personal view is that a considerable number of good questions are closed down prematurely so I regard this as a positive thing that it got reopen and stays that way. It might be a valuable pointer to the original five closing voters that the community as a whole disagreed with their opinions and they might want to take that into account for the future. May I suggest asking on meta? – Konrad Viltersten Sep 07 '14 at 07:46
  • Leave open. It works on two levels. A murder of crows is a group of crows. Two crows is an attempt at starting a bigger group. At the practical level, you may shoot one of them but the other will escape as you do so, so you have only attempted its murder. – Anton Jul 02 '23 at 07:36

2 Answers2

126

The joke is a play on words [Cambridge Dictionary] on various definitions of murder.

A group of crows is called a murder. [Wikipedia]

Two is not quite a group, hence an attempted murder.

To further beat the joke to death, murder also means homicide, and attempted murder is a crime in British and United States' penal codes. The unusual combination of birds and crime adds to the humor as a non-sequitur.

Patrick M
  • 4,277
bib
  • 72,782
0

It’s not really a language joke—it’s a cultural joke, I think.

There is a superstition that three crows seen together bodes murder. Therefore, two crows seen together is one crow short of murder—or “attempted murder”.

It’s true that a group of crows is sometimes called a “murder”, but this seems to stem from the superstition, and not the other way around. Given the precise number two in the joke, I would guess that the superstition is being referred to, not the word.

Micah Walter
  • 972
  • 5
    It is not a “superstition”; it is a *term of venery*, which is something else altogether. After all, a man left murdered in the fields would soon have a flock of crows mobbing his fragrant corpse. No “superstition” is required here, just The Book of Saint Albans or the more recent An Exaltation of Larks. :) – tchrist Sep 06 '14 at 16:09
  • 1
    The point is, it’s possible that the term of venery is derived from the superstition. For what reason, other than superstition, would exactly three crows be so important? – Micah Walter Sep 06 '14 at 21:15
  • 3
    It is not that a gathering of crows indicate that there shall be a murder, but rather that there has already been one. Therefore there is no superstition involved, merely observed habit and fact. Corvids of all sorts are notorious for flocking to the aftermaths of bloody battles, whose slain have provided a feast for crows since the dawn of time. – tchrist Sep 06 '14 at 21:29
  • But why exactly three? And yes, there is definitely a superstition that the dying will take place in the future—a Google search will confirm. Certainly it may be rooted in the observation you mention, but it seems to have taken a life of its own, and I think it’s this that the joke is referring to. – Micah Walter Sep 07 '14 at 00:10
  • The magic of the trinity has roots in many other myths and legends, religious and secular. Witchcraft, with which crows are often related, in particular has a long history of veneration for the number three. It's an entirely separate line of reasoning. – Lightness Races in Orbit Sep 07 '14 at 00:13
  • Why exactly three? Well, for no reason, because it isn’t exactly three. A murder of crows is just a group of crows—the point being that two is not usually considered enough to make a group. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 14 '14 at 18:43
  • 2
    Counting crows The closest rhyme to this seems to be: "One for sorrow, Two for mirth; Three for a wedding, Four for death.". Not "three for a murder". – Peter Shor Sep 14 '14 at 19:52
  • That may be true, but there exist other versions that do mention three specifically. (Wikipedia has some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_crows) – Micah Walter Sep 15 '14 at 15:34