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There is a joke:

Q: What is grey and comes in quarts?
A: An elephant.

Why? Why does it come in quarts? What is funny here?

Marthaª
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Andorian
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    Not a native speaker, but couldn't this also be a reference to something like this, given the similarity in pronunciation of quarts and quartz ? – Guntram Blohm May 10 '16 at 13:40
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    @GuntramBlohm, it could be, but it's not. The given answer is correct. – JPhi1618 May 10 '16 at 15:37
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    Why is it funny? Meh, it's not. – Lightness Races in Orbit May 10 '16 at 16:42
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    And here I thought it was like the "joke" - "The ocean is deep... bones!" (upon which everyone in the know bursts into laughter, while those who don't get it laugh awkardly because they don't get it) – Wayne Werner May 10 '16 at 21:04
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    I totally don't get the "The ocean is deep... bones!" joke... should I ask about that too? I feel it's not a rabbit hole I want to go down. – Nelson May 11 '16 at 01:51
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    The joke is incomprehensible without explanation, and with an explanation it comes stupid. – Farside May 11 '16 at 09:59
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    Does anyone care to explain the ocean-bones joke?:/ – print x div 0 May 11 '16 at 11:53
  • Is the "ocean-bone" joke a sort of "Newton, Pascal and Watt playing hide and seek" joke? – Crowley May 11 '16 at 12:10
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    I didn't get it at all, but now that I read the answer explaining it to me...I'm gonna go ahead and give this joke an A, high-brow haters be damned – coburne May 11 '16 at 14:49
  • @JPhil1618 I think the play on words with "quarts" and "quartz" is also part of the joke, assuming this joke is intended to be told (as most are), not read. If not, then why not use a more common measure... "What is grey and comes in pints?" – MrWhite May 11 '16 at 18:07
  • @printxdiv0 I'm pretty sure the joke is that there is no joke. Everyone who knows that pretends to laugh really hard, and everyone who's never heard it before feels awkward because they don't understand why it's funny. I have a friend that just loves that type of humor. – DJMcMayhem May 11 '16 at 21:06
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    I think the "The ocean is deep .... Bones" joke (the capital B is my addition) is a Star Trek reference, referring to William Shatner (Captain Kirk)'s fondness for dramatic pauses mid-sentence. "Bones" being the nickname of Dr McCoy, to whom Kirk would often speak. – Max Williams May 12 '16 at 10:29
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    @w3d i think the joke would essentially be the same if it was pints instead of quarts, but that's no reason to assume that there's another play on words involving the mineral "quartz", which has no relevance to the joke. Perhaps "quarts" was chosen by the joke writer because that's the size of milk which they tend to buy. Personally, i always buy a 1-litre milk container, which is the metric equivalent of a quart (actually a bit less, but the closest metric "round number", so not truly equivalent). – Max Williams May 12 '16 at 10:32

2 Answers2

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I feel like I'm walking into some kind of trolling here, but I believe the joke is based around the definition of "comes" which is synomymous with "ejaculates".

In other words, the joke is implying that volume of the elephant's ejaculate is rather large: a "quart" of course being another word for a quarter of a gallon, aka two pints.

The first-glance reading of "comes in quarts" would be "is available in quarts" (like milk), and the reversal of the understood meaning of "comes" is where the humour arises (if it does arise).

Ste
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Max Williams
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    Word of the moment: paraprosdokian – Andrew Leach May 10 '16 at 12:54
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    @AndrewLeach well that can't be right, it says "sometimes producing an anti-climax"... ;) – Marv Mills May 10 '16 at 12:56
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    According to this paper (SFW), elephants ejaculate 5-75 ml depending on the type of ejaculate, or less than 10% of a quart. – March Ho May 10 '16 at 14:52
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    Note that in this context, "come" is normally spelled "cum", but that ruins the written joke because that makes the intention obvious. – JPhi1618 May 10 '16 at 15:40
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    @JPhi1618 no, it can be spelled "come" - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/come see definition 2j. – Max Williams May 10 '16 at 15:43
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    I didn't say it couldn't be spelled that way, but in typical adult contexts, the "u" spelling is much more frequent, and it avoids confusion. Regardless of how common either is, I thought it would be a nice fact for people unfamiliar with the word usage. – JPhi1618 May 10 '16 at 15:46
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    @MarchHo: actually, it's even less: that's the data for ejaculate that does not contain sperm. That paper says the ejaculate that does contain sperm is only 5-25 ml, or about 3% of a quart at most. Seems like this joke needs to be updated to make it anatomically correct! (By the way, I'm not sure I'd characterize that paper as "SFW": halfway through it has some pictures that show a male elephant's reproductive organs.) – herisson May 10 '16 at 15:52
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    @JPhi1618 If you avoid confusion, the joke doesn't work. – Max Williams May 10 '16 at 15:53
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    @sumelic I can't edit the comment further, but I actually glanced at the penis and thought it was a leg (fifth leg?) on my initial read. In any case, I would probably not mind reading this paper in the presence of my boss, as long as he wasn't actively looking at my screen. – March Ho May 11 '16 at 01:57
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    @JPhi1618: I've always thought that it was "come" and "cum" is a misspelling that has been accepted as an alternate spelling. Most of the erotical I read spell it "come". – slebetman May 11 '16 at 04:21
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    @MarvMills What's grey and comes in negative quarts? A paraprosdokian elephant. – user56reinstatemonica8 May 11 '16 at 11:34
  • @MaxWilliams "if it does arise" Pure gold. Upvote for that alone – Kevin May 12 '16 at 12:29
  • @MaxWilliams Most jokes don't work if you avoid confusion. There's nothing to kill a good joke like someone who insists on clarifying all the terms to eliminate confusion. "Well yes, obviously to get to the other side, but you have failed to explain the underlying reason ..." – Jay May 13 '16 at 02:27
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    Jokes that are based on homophone puns are generally expected to work in a verbal context, less so in a written context. – Barmar May 16 '16 at 19:17
  • Question got closed recently. See the Meta effect. You might be interested in reopening it. – Mari-Lou A Aug 13 '19 at 08:17
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It seems it's some kind of "penis joke", as explained above, and it seems it doesn't have much sense anyways, as outlined by @march-ho:

According to this paper (SFW), elephants ejaculate 5-75 ml depending on the type of ejaculate, or less than 10% of a quart.

Based on other opinions, those elephant jokes had a lot of symbolism.

Based on Wikipedia:

Elephant jokes are seen by many commentators as symbolic of the culture of the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1960s ... Abrahams and Dundes, in their paper On elephantasy and elephanticide, consider elephant jokes to be convenient disguises for racism, and symbolised the nervousness of white people about the civil rights movement. Whilst blatantly racialist jokes became less acceptable, elephant jokes were a useful proxy. Abrahams and Dundes take the joke

Q: What is big and grey and comes in quarts?
A: An elephant.

and state that the "big and grey and comes in quarts" is in fact a reference "to the supposed mammoth nature of black sexuality." Similarly, the joke about an elephant in the bathtub is argued to be a reference to the increased intrusion of black people into "the most intimate areas of white life."

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Farside
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    what the hell is the "the joke about an elephant in the bathtub" ... !?!!? – Fattie May 11 '16 at 19:26
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    The elephant asks the penguin to pass the soap. And the penguin says not soap, radio. – Aaron McMillin May 11 '16 at 19:51
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    This is a very interesting theory, that elephant jokes are disguised racism. I wonder if there's any truth in it. There's something inherently funny about elephants, possibly just because they are so large and exotic, but perhaps it's our subconscious anxieties acting out. Paging Dr Freud! Perhaps we could look at jokes made up by people of african heritage and see what the incidence of elephants is - if they tend to use some other animal then there might be something in the theory. – Max Williams May 12 '16 at 10:41
  • Elephants have different types of ejaculate? – Kevin May 12 '16 at 12:31
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    @AaronMcMillin care to explain this joke? – marsh May 12 '16 at 17:36
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    @mark It's pretty hilarious. Try saying the joke out loud a few times, then you'll understand. – kevingreen May 12 '16 at 17:43
  • @JoeBlow, you may check the similar question here, regarding "bathtub" jokes. – Farside May 12 '16 at 19:25
  • The article you linked goes on to note that the racial undertones of these jokes are controversial among academics who evidently have time to debate the subject. – Kevin May 13 '16 at 03:36
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    @marsh: probably, no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_soap_radio – herisson May 15 '16 at 21:45