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This article discusses humour in terms of comedy and laughter. For ancient Greek theories of humour in physiology,
psychology and medicine, see four humours.
Humour (humor in American English) is a form of entertainment and a form of human communication, intended to make people laugh and feel happy. The origins of
the word "humour" lie in the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which
stated that a mix of fluids, or humours, controlled human health and emotion.
Different types of humour which appeal to different sectors of humanity exist – for instance, young children
particularly favour slapstick, while satire tends to appeal more to the older and better-educated. Humour often varies by locality and does not easily
transfer from one culture to another. This happens because humour often relies on a context, and someone not understanding the
context will usually not understand the humour. Various techniques, as detailed below, serve to deliver humour:
Techniques
- Verbal
- Nonverbal
- Fake stern manner (inappropriate in a comic setting)
- Ridiculous gestures and movements
- Slapstick
- Inflicting pain (such as kick in the groin or in the film "Home Alone", etc)
- Faking stupidity
- Pointing out real stupidity (such as the Darwin Awards)
- Silly acts inappropriate for the situation or age of person
- Practical joke: deliberately luring someone into a humorous
position and then laughing at their expense
- Adages, often in the form of parody "laws" of nature
- Deliberate ambiguity and confusion with reality (such as in Andy Kaufman's humour)
- Unexpected outcome, such as a witty punchline, (surprise)
- Absurdity
- Humorous "Laws" such as Murphy's law
- Self-inflicted embarrassing situation, e.g. losing one's swimming trunks after a dive
- Comic sounds or inherently funny words with certain sounds that make them
amusing in a particular language
- Self-degradation (such as in Rodney Dangerfield's
humour)
- Stereotyping (such as blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, racial jokes, etc)
- Unintentional humour, that is, making people laugh
without trying
- Form-versus-content humour
- Note - many more exist
Explanation
Some claim that humour cannot be explained. However, one can make attempts at explanation, such as this one:
Perhaps the essence of humour lies in the presentation of something familiar to a person, so they think they know the natural
follow-on thought or conclusion, then providing a twist through presentation something different from what the audience expected
(see Surprise), or else the natural result of interpreting the original situation
in a different, less common, way. For example:
A man speaks to his doctor after an operation. He says, "Doc, now that the surgery is done, will I be able to play the
piano?" The doctor replies "Of course!" The man says "Good, because I couldn't before!"
For this reason too many jokes work in threes. For instance the standard "A priest a
rabbi and a lawyer sitting in a bar," the
priest makes a remark, the rabbi continues in the same vein, and then the lawyer makes a third point that forms a sharp break
from the established pattern, but a response that remains logical.
Notable studies of humour have come from the pens of Aristotle in The Poetics (Part V), of Sigmund Freud in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious and of Arthur Schopenhauer. The French philosopher Henri Bergson wrote an essay on "the meaning of the comic", in which he viewed
the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English
humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion
for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who
have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because although a genuine
impulse of charity is living, a vital impulse, here it has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest
itself.
A Bergsonian might explain puns in the same spirit. Puns classify words not by what is living (their meaning) but by what is
mechanical (their mere sound).
There also exist linguistic and psycholinguistic studies of humour, irony, parody and pretence. Prominent theoreticians in this field include Raymond Gibbs, Herbert Clark and Salvatore Attardo.
Users of some psychoactive drugs tend to find humour in many
more situations and events than one normally would.
One notable trait of Australians (perhaps inherited from the British) lies in
their use of deadpan humour, in which the joker will make an outrageous or ridiculous
statement without explicitly indicating they are joking. Americans visiting Australia have gained themselves a reputation for
gullibility and a lack of a sense of humour by not recognising that tales of kangaroos hopping across the Sydney Harbour Bridge exemplify the propensity for this style of
leg-pulling.
Humour formula
Required components:
Methods:
See also
References
- Mobbs, D., Greicius, M.D., Abdel-Azim, E., Menon, V. & Reiss, A. L. Humor modulates the mesolimbic
reward centers. Neuron , 40, 1041 - 1048, (2003).
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