So I have always gotten jokes. A friend told me his favorite and i just don't understand it. I did a web search and found variants but no explanation why it's funny or what it means. Can you help?

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Cars have windows. Houses have windows. So it can't be windows that makes the car go.

I swear I don't understand, and he tried to explain it to me. He said it's a double meaning with Windows the operating system but I just don't don't don't get it.

Can anyone make this understandable to me? I may have screwed up the retelling, because honestly I have no idea what the hell's going on with this joke.

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This might not be what your friend is going for, but I smirked slightly and this is how I interpret it:

I particularly like jokes that take something absurd and launder it through the structure of things that do make sense. Everything in your friend's joke is factually true. It's structured as a logically consistent argument.

And yet it is completely nonsensical. No one has ever thought that windows make something move. It invoked a slightly confused response in me, which is why I found it funny.

It's not a great joke, but I might tell it to feel out someone's sense of humor plus whether they pick up on that I'm doing so. I think the analogy to Windows makes it a weaker joke, but I would give that as an explanation just to mess with someone a little.

That DOES sound like him

If he's someone that's normally good at being funny - that is good at finding humorous observations and wording things that get people to laugh - then I'd say he's messing with you.

I would mess with him right back by acting like I'm very seriously trying to understanding the joke and ask increasingly dumb questions until he realizes that yes, I knew exactly what he was doing. Or a knowing smirk if that's too much.

(Yes this comment is very revealing about my childhood)

Yeah, it made me think of my mother's favourite joke, which is completely bizarre:

What's the difference between a blackbird? Both legs are the same length, especially the left one.

🤷‍♀️