Funny Story (Solution)

by Lilly Chin, Eric Mannes, and Jenny Nitishinskaya

The punchlines of the jokes are, in order:

  1. "To the vicar go the soils."
  2. "Don't hatchet your counts before they chicken."
  3. "Better Nate than lever."
  4. "Don't judge a cook by his brother."
  5. "A herd in the band is worth two of the Bush."
  6. "A waist is a terrible thing to mind."
  7. "People who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones."
  8. "When it pains, it roars."

Joke 1 contains every word of punchline 5 except for "soils," which appears only in joke 7, once. Indexing gives the letter S. (7->1)
Joke 2 contains every word of punchline 2 except for "chicken," which appears only in joke 6, once. Indexing gives the letter C. (6->2)
Joke 3 contains every word of punchline 3 except for "better," which appears only in joke 1, three times. Indexing gives the letter T. (1->3)
Joke 4 contains every word of punchline 4 except for "judge," which appears only in joke 5, exactly five times. Indexing gives the letter E. (5->4)
Joke 5 contains every word of punchline 1 except for "worth," which appears only in joke 2, five times. Indexing gives the letter H. (2->5)
Joke 6 contains every word of punchline 6 except for "terrible," which appears only in joke 8, three times. Indexing gives the letter R. (8->6)
Joke 7 contains every word of punchline 7 except for "stow," which appears only in joke 4, once. Indexing gives the letter S. (4->7)
Joke 8 contains every word of punchline 8 except for "pains," which appears only in joke 3, twice. Indexing gives the letter A. (3->8)

We order the letters such that the letter from the word Y missing from joke X is after the letter from the word missing from the joke that Y is contained in.

This gives us the ordering 1→3→8→6→2→5→4→7→1, which gives the letters S→T→A→R→C→H→E→S, spelling out the answer: STARCHES.