What Makes Things Funny? Most people have laughed at a funny joke or learned something from one before. What some people don’t know is that there is actually a science behind humor. Comedians and writers have specific ways that they use humor to get people to consider something that is referenced in the joke, or just to make them laugh. There are many methods that are used to convey different things but some methods are better than others when you are trying to deliver a different message. Two high comedy texts that are good examples of this are “Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from Language Programs’ and ‘Is Traffic Jam Delectable?” Some of the methods that are used in these texts are satire, sarcasm, one-liners, irony, wit, …show more content…
It uses one-liners, wit, and cuteness to entertain and amuse the reader. One-liners are short jokes or witty remarks used primarily to amuse the listener. Prelutsky uses one-liners in the poem “Is Traffic Jam Delectable?” to entertain the reader. For example, he says, “Can salmon scale a mountain,” (Prelutsky 280) This phrase doesn’t seem to make sense at first for most people but after analyzing it you can see that it refers to a salmon being able to climb a mountain but it uses the word scale because fish have scales. Another method used in this poem is wit. Wit is a natural ability to use words in a quick and inventive way to create humor. Wit is used in this poem when it says “does jelly fish in lakes,” (Prelutsky 280) this is witty because it is asking if jelly can fish in a lake but also while creating the word jellyfish. Some people might not understand this joke or simply do not find it entertaining but a lot of people do. Cuteness is when something is simply clever and cunning. A lot of people think of the definition of cute that relates to attractive things but that’s not how it is used in this situation. Prelutsky uses cuteness when he says “I like to use piano keys to open locks of hair.” You obviously can’t use piano keys to open locks of hair but is using the word keys in piano keys and the word locks in locks of hair to bridge them both together because keys open locks. This is a very clever statement and that is why this is cute. Most people might laugh or at least grin when they see this kind of humor. In this case the author isn’t really trying to persuade or inform anybody of anything but is mainly just trying to amuse the
When there is humor involved people seem to enjoy things way better, the reason for this is that people will
“Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don't laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions.” Once said an American poet, essayist, and existentialist philosopher Criss Jami, Killosophy. I also believe that humor and laugh play a big role in our lives. However, there are two types of people’s personality; people who understand humor and more open minded, and those who just cannot get it, and that, in my opinion, just makes their live harder. The article, “That’s Not Funny” by Caitlin Flanagan, is talking about college students that are not allowed to joke because of comedians restrictiveness in what they are talking
What is the most common perception held in this country concerning the people and the way they live in the South? The perception most of the country has about life down here in the South is one of slow-paced living, simple-minded people, and stubborn, unwarranted pride. One of the best ways to combat this perception is through the use of humor; Lewis Grizzard was one of the best at this, because he could take the experiences from his own life as well as the lives of others in the South and turn them into humorous semi-fictional stories. He was one of the preeminent fictional authors this country has ever seen because of his ability to connect with people and joke about everyday life in the south, without offending the subjects of those jokes, despite the popular opinion the rest of the country held.
“Morreall argues that, if we want to answer these questions, we shouldn’t focus on whether the joke happens to trade on a stereotype. Instead, he takes the primary problem with some humor to be that it involves disengaging from things with which we ought to be engaged.” (Morreall, 529)
"There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third."
Steve Almond’s “Funny is the New Deep” talks of the role that comedy has in our current society, and most certainly, it plays a huge role here. Namely, through what Almond [Aristotle?] calls the “comic impulse”, we as a people can speak of topics that would otherwise make many of uncomfortable. Almond deems the comic impulse as the most surefire way to keep heavy situations from becoming too foreboding. The comic impulse itself stems from our ability and unconscious need to defend and thus contend with the feeling of tragedy. As such, instead of rather forcing out humor, he implies that humor is something that is not consciously forced out from an author, but instead is more of a subconscious entity, coming out on its own. Almond emphasizes
My humor consists mainly of a mix of high and low comedy, and sarcasm. One element of humor that does not appeal to is caricatures. An example of this is a terrorist joke. The terrorist was holding a pencil and saying “Where is the trigger?” exaggerating the fact that, in the news we hear about terrorism, and when the terrorists come to America they would not be able to decipher the language or the meaning of objects. The joke did not appeal to me in anyway and didn’t make sense. A certain part of an element of humor that does not appeal to is disgusting anecdotes. In the passage, Brothers by Jon Scieszka, a family goes on a roadtrip and stopover to eat. A brother drops a piece of candy and the cat eats it and yacks it up. “Tom burped a bit of Stuckey lunch back on Gregg.” The bodily functions and them throwing up and spilling out of the puke wagon had made me lose my appetite for lunch.
On the other hand, the Chief, in “The Laughing Man”, experiences a situation in which his hopes slowly died and, in turn, changed into a never-ending path of despair, much like Seymour and Sergeant X. His hopes, in this case, are set within his girlfriend, Mary Hudson (95). Despite having a god-like effect on the children, the Chief is nothing more than a skinny law-student, and must create a fictional in order to compensate for his love-less life. This is exemplified when the narrator states, “his hair-line extremely low, his nose was large and fleshy, and his torso was just about as long as his legs were”, implying that he was less than fortunate when it came to girls (85). However, once Mary Hudson is introduced, she changes the Chief by
According to Everything’s an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, “Humor has always played an important role in argument.” (38). Humor itself is something that activates amusement or laughter. Moreover, in popular culture, satire is a tool that is used to point out things in our society. Satire opens the minds of people to philosophies they might completely deny, using humor.
When you think something is funny you stop and laugh it off. You might even consider reading it again to see what the message of that joke or humor is in the
Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists study humor because it is a fundamental culture value, but they still can’t determine why certain things make some people laugh and others not. There are “humor quotient” tests that are designed to measure an individual’s sense of humor, but these tests are questionable. These tests aren’t accurate because almost all humor depends on cultural background knowledge and language skills. Not every person in the whole world, or even in one country share the same background knowledge and skills, therefore they cannot have the same type of humor. “The fact remains that individuals vary in their appreciation of humor” (Rappoport 9). Since humor varies from individual to individual, humor lies in the individual. How successful or funny a joke is depends on how the person receives the joke, humor cannot be measured by a statistical
Humour allows other's to understand a difficult situation without feeling the need to feel uncomfortable about it.
Humor is more than just amusing entertainment to pass the time. Though jokes and witty banter can be shallow, humor can go deeper than surface level to convey messages to audiences who would otherwise be close-minded about certain ideas. Humor is a great tool to get audiences to change the way they think, feel, and act. In “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” Alexander Weinstein uses humor to criticize some of society’s faults such as the way it has become heavily reliant on technology, racially insensitive, and judgmental.
Humor has been the source of entertainment throughout history. Today humor is practiced in movies, plays, songs, television shows and radio. Humor has brought fame and fortune to those who have mastered its power.
If there is one way to bring a smile to someone’s face, it is laughter. Funny jokes, comical stunts, sarcasm- Every person is different when it comes to what makes them laugh. Some find dry humor comical. Others think sarcasm or joke-filled ranting are the best. ‘Comedy’ is such a broad term, broad enough to allow everyone to find something they find comical. In fact, ‘comedy’ includes a specific type of drama, one where the protagonist is joyful and happy endings are expected. Comedy is like a drug; it allows you to escape reality. When we say the word ‘comedy’ in the present, we are generally referring to a type of performance which provides humor. However, in its broadest sense, comedy has only one purpose: comedy makes people smile and