Lonely Old Woman

Lonely Old Woman
An _older lady_ was somewhat lonely, and decided that she needed a pet to
keep her company.
So off to the pet shop she went. Forlornly, she searched. Nothing
seemed to catch her interest, except_this one ugly frog_.
As she walked by the barrel he was in, he looked up and winked at her!
He whispered, "I'm lonely too, buy me and you won't be sorry." The old
lady figured, what the heck, as she hadn't anything else.
So, she bought the frog and went to her car. Driving down the road the
frog whispered to her, "Kiss me, you won't be sorry."
So, the old lady figured what the heck, and kissed the frog.
Immediately the frog turned into an absolutely gorgeous, sexy, handsome, young prince.
Then the prince kissed her back, and you know what the old lady turned
into?
_Scroll down...
The first motel she could find. (She's old, not dead) _

1. How do you see the difference between an elderly lady and an older one?
2. “This one + a noun” looks odd to me. How common is the collocation?
3. I don’t get the punch line. Could you please explain it?

Tnx.

<How do you see the difference between an elderly lady and an older one? >

"An older lady" is more polite or euphemistic than "elderly", which itself is often more polite than, or euphemistic for, "old".

<2. “This one + a noun” looks odd to me. How common is the collocation? >

The frog was the only ugly one in the shop and/or the collocation is used to focus on the unique quality of the thing.

EG

This one day in May we decided to...
That one time he told me to f-off I...

<I don’t get the punch line. Could you please explain it?>

It's a play on the words "turn into". One meaning is "to transform" and another is to change one's direction while moving - often to stop somewhere. She turned into/pulled into/stopped at a motel to have sex with the prince.

I agree with the above poster, however when it says old this could depend upon the context, as to me "old" is not defined in years. However elderly to me means an OAP (old age pensioner).

Whilst the collocation may not be frequently used, it is understood by most, and is used to highlight and focus the mind upon this statement.

Turn into location (motel) or transformation (she could have been transformed in a similar way in which he was, hence the scrolling down to find the answer).

<I agree with the above poster, however when it says old this could depend upon the context, as to me "old" is not defined in years. However elderly to me means an OAP (old age pensioner). >

What does "an old person" mean to you?

Aha, it’s a pun: turn into sth- change in nature, turn in – go to bed, turn – change in direction.

As to “scroll down” – what does it mean apart from looking through a list and how is it used? It means ‘try a guess’?

The "go to bed" meaning is not implied by "turn into", although you can assume she had sex with him from the fact that it's a motel that she went to. "Turn into" just implies that she turned her car into the parking lot of the motel, which is a pun on the other use of "turn into", meaning "change into".

As for "scroll down", the intention of the author of this joke was there be a space of many lines between the main body of the joke and punchline. He wanted you to have to scroll down the page in order to see the punchline to make sure that you would read the whole joke before looking at it, and to give you some time to guess what (or where) she turned into.

Correction: the intention of the author of this joke was THAT there be

hehe. nice joke there. where do you find such funny jokes? Any links?

The joke was told in an EFL forum (no links given, sorry).
Now I see I could use it to illustrate phrasal verbs usage to learners who are old enough for a joke like this.

I'd also like to ask abt "what the heck".
I think here, it's elliptic from "what the heck will happen if I do/ nothing bad will happen/ I will not lose anything if I do".
Am I right?

More or less. I think the meaning is closer to "It's worth giving it a try" -- even if something bad could happen -- but it probably came about the way you said it, or something similar.

- Kef

Thank you all very much.