Hi,

I assume that you’re referring to my blog post from 2013, at https://danq.me/2013/04/16/the-worst-joke-i-ever-heard/. If so:

• My retelling of the joke was contextually correct: as I state in my opening paragraph, I’m describing the joke as it was told to me, not as it “ought” to be.
• Yes, I’m aware that the punchline would be better as “Pakis come from Pakistan”. I address exactly this in the third section of my blog post. My exact words were: In the case of the “paki” joke, the problem could easily be corrected by saying “…they come from Pakistan.” It’d still probably be the worst joke I ever heard, but at least it’d be trying to improve itself. I remember being about 8 or 9 and explaining this to a classmate, but he wasn’t convinced. As I remember it, he called me a belm and left it at that.
• As a Scot, and as somebody who’s lived the majority of his adult life in Wales, I’m quite familiar with the offence that can easily be caused, as you describe, to the people from these nations when they’re mis-described as English (and, to a lesser extent because it doesn’t happen so often, the other way around). However, as described above it’s rather irrelevant because I was at no point defending the joke in my blog post: indeed, I was quite clearly lampooning it.

Thanks for your feedback, but perhaps you should have read the whole post before trying to “correct” it? ;-)