jokes - Two crows being an attempted murder


What is the point of this joke?



— "What do you call two crows on a branch?"
— "Attempted murder."



I've googled it to check if it was a word play but the closest one I've hit was "marauder". Someone care to explain?



Answer



The joke is a play on words [Cambridge Dictionary] on various definitions of murder.


A group of crows is called a murder. [Wikipedia]


Two is not quite a group, hence an attempted murder.


To further beat the joke to death, murder also means homicide, and attempted murder is a crime in British and United States' penal codes. The unusual combination of birds and crime adds to the humor as a non-sequitur.


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