Joke check

[nancylebov]

I'll probably get bumper stickers printed in red that say "If this is blue, you're driving too fast."

It's occurred to me that I could add another twist to the joke by having them printed in blue, but I'm not sure whether that version of the joke would be either comprehensible or funny. What do you think?

If you and a source of waves are moving toward each other, the waves seem closer together. Blue light has shorter waves than red, so if something red looks blue, you're closing on that bumper much too fast.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I like the original (printed in red). It's understandable to anyone who knows some high school physics, and easily explainable to anyone capable of understanding such (as you yourself do above).

The second twist would be funny in the hypothetical situation where the first joke became popular, as a followup.

Heh

[darius.livejournal.com]

The red version made me chuckle; I think with the blue version by the time I'd have finished deciding what the joke was it wouldn't be funny anymore (unless I'd already seen the red one).

[zenlizard]

Wonder how expensive it would be to print them in red & blue diagonal stripes running accross the letters of the slogan, just to really confuse people.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks, all. It looks as though I'm pretty much going to have to enjoy that joke by myself.

Two-color printing would cost something extra, most likely, but not a devastating amount. The problem is that I'm going for legibility, and red and blue diagonal stripes isn't going to help with that.

I recall hearing this as "red shift",

[fixx.livejournal.com]

but I no longer recall if it works in both directions. If it does there is the potential for up to four bumper stickers of ever decreasing humor.

For example you could have:
1) a bumper sticker for the front of the car in red reading,
"If this bumper sticker appears blue, get the hell out of my way",
2) a bumper sticker for the front of the car in blue reading,
"If this bumper sticker appears red, call AAA",
3) an additional sticker for the rear of the car in blue reading,
"If this bumper sticker appears red, I've been abducted by aliens"

And that's on my first cup of coffee. :-)