A man spending his first night in prison hears other inmates calling out numbers, followed by laughter.

The next day he starts talking to one of the inmates and asks about it.

The inmate explains that after a few years there was no new jokes so they decided to just number all the good ones, that way they could save time in telling the joke.

That night the inmates are calling out numbers again followed by great bouts of laughter. Wanting to fit in the man calls out '22'. Everything goes quiet and the man doesn't understand why.

The next day he asks his new friend what went wrong, "was 22 not a funny joke?"

"22 is one of the best jokes" came the reply.

"Why did no one laugh then?" Said the man

"It was the way you told it."