[dllthomas]

"Doesn't sound like a joke, note even close."

It sounds very much like a very specific joke.

Blues Brothers has a scene where Belushi is being obnoxious and asks the father in family of diners at a neighboring table "How much for the little girl? How much for the women?"

Of course, the joke there is precisely that it's so outrageous and unacceptable.

[sanoli]

Of course those are two different things.

[dllthomas]

What two things are different?

[sanoli]

To sound like a joke, as in everyone will find it funny and immediately know it is a joke, and to sound like one specific obscure line that is a joke in some film, and that people don't immediately get. They both sound like a joke, but here "like a joke" means two different things.

[dllthomas]

Ah. I think you're drawing a reasonable distinction.

Though I certainly wouldn't say everyone (or even most) need to find it funny to "sound like a joke" in the sense you meant. Surely, there are bad jokes that sound like bad jokes. I think it's probably correct to say that most should "immediately know it is a joke".

All of that said, whether that's likely to be the case in this instance depends on a lot of context that wasn't specified.