BS: What's funny?

Subject: BS: What's funny?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 07:53 PM

We had a thread the other day started off about why people sometimes get hot under the collar when they don't think something is funny and someone else does.

Anyway it got deleted - I gather because some trolls moved in and started using it to post nasty stuff, and someone requested the whole thing be deleted.

However the thread as it was going set me thinking about a few things.

We talk about things being funny as if it was an objective condition. But then we find out different people have different ideas of what is funny and what is not funny.

However we aren't happy leaving it at that, because if other people are laughing and we don't think its funny joke we feel excluded and angry. Or maybe we feel embarrassed, and make as if we did share the same sense of humour. And when we want to attack someone, this issue of lack of humour (or, from the other side, of being flippant). is a killer accusation. It can turn an amiable discussion vicious, just likem that.

So, what's funny? And what isn't? And who decides?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 07:56 PM

Individuals decide based on the messages that their ears send to their brains. Or is it the other way around? Brain to ears? Either way there is no definitive answer.


Next.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 08:09 PM

Context means lots, IMO. It frames the potentialities for us. Seeing someone slip on ice is not funny, unless you know the person to be a lout. Seeing Mary Travers slip on ice is not funny, IMO. Seeing Bush do the same would likely give me a chuckle. SINSULL posted something outrageously funny on the other thread; however it was not funny to her at the time.

A friend of mine died in a car crash many years back. I went to dress his body prior to the funeral. Long story made short: He'd been late for everything in his whole life. While locking up the place I checked the gymnasium. In everyone's hurry to get to the church which was 30 miles away, they had forgot my friend's body, complete with casket. I burst out laughing. If there is anything to an afterlife, I would bet he did, too.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 08:52 PM

I agree with Peace. Context is everything- otherwise there wouldn't be such a tremendous range of humo(u)rous things. There are subtle off-the wall ones like what he referred to- the only other way his friend's being late to his own funeral would have been funny would have been if his friend, instead of being perpetually late, had been a vociferous stickler for promptness. Context is all.

In addition, standards over time and in varying cultures change. Not to mention that events change the likelihood of something being perceived as hilarious. The black humo(u)r of danger and tension is a well known phenomenon. Even physical exhaustion affects one's perception of something being funny.

The unexpected is a BIG elbow in the ribs. So is the grimace or the bafflement of a child or an animal.

I sometimes watch 'America's Funniest Home Videos'. The events there are evidence enough that what is seen as funny varies widely from person to person. Probably most people cringe when what they see has the likely outcome of physical harm but some people respond to the unexpected no matter what. Other things can be excruciatingly funny to one person and draw only a chuckle from someone else.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 08:59 PM

Good story, Peace. I bet your friend laughed at that too.

**

Let me expand on "context" and say that culture determines what is funny or not funny and when it is funny or not-funny.

We learn whether it is acceptable for certain people {gender; age; race; ethnicity; economic/social class]to laugh publicly at certain people and certain situations just as we learn whether it is acceptable for certain people to cry publicly.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 01:17 AM

I have sat through many a film in the cinema (or movie at the theater) and laughed myself sick at certain things and been one of only a dozen or so in a packed auditorium to do so.... culture, education, memory and experience all play a part in what is funny.

I'm of an age where I was on the cusp of the traditional wordplay/storyteller artists (Flanders and Swann, Marriot Edgar, Tom Lehrer, Bob Monkhouse, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson and so on) and the newer 'alternative comedians' like Ben Elton, French and Saunders, Rik Mayall etc. I appreciate a good fart joke like most people but I'm also still able to listen to a long and rambling monologue without a swear word or obscene comment in it. The word 'fuck' does not become funnier the more you say it, neither does it make anything it describes funnier.

When I'm the solitary giggler in the cinema (or the Les Barker concert) it's because I've recognised and appreciated a sequence of words or a visual reference that was meant to amuse - in 'Educating Rita', I was the lone laugher at the line 'I think I'll call myself Mary Shelley' - a line clearly meant to be funny but only if you remember that the lecturer has declared that he has made Rita what she is, and that Mary Shelly was the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. It went over the heads of the majority of the audience because I strongly suspect they thought Boris Karloff invented Frankenstein and didn't know the original author.

Humour is inherently individual... one man's fall down a staircase is another man's risk assessment is another man's £250 video clip show - and it's entirely circumstancial. Something hysterically funny at the time is only mildly amusing when related later ~ yesterday morning as I lay in bed, Limpit was on the computer playing games and Manitas was in the bathroom. We don't close doors in our house so I was treated to the sounds of both. I heard the loo seat go down, Manitas seating himself and then 'grunt, strain, kaboom'! A well timed explosion sound from the computer made the moment one of those that will have me smirking for a few days, but in relating it to visitors later that day (we know them really well, we're not in the habit of discussing our toilet habits to postmen or Jehovah's Witnesses [although that might get them off our doorstep] or any other passing caller), it just wasn't the same.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 01:49 AM

We are frequently reminded that the UK and the USA have different perceptions? standards? kinds? of humour.

I happen to think that Victor Borge is/was hysterically funny. Do the UKers think so?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: autolycus
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:05 AM

The flaw in any question of this form is fingered by responding,"Who for?")


I think McGrath was spot on until you talked about not
being happy to leave it at that because of not finding
funny something that others do.


   I don't personally feel embarassed or angry or excluded
if I don't think it's funny (tho' I used to feel embarassed
when I was young). I just say (as the composer Boulez said
of people who don't like his music),"it's not my cuppa."
There's plenty for me,and I don't feel I (or anybody) have
to find everything funny.

   Recently I did a list which began as being of my favourite comedians. I was expecting to prefer US comedians. Two things happened. I discovered I liked an equal number of British
and American cemedians, a real surprise for me (I thought I
preferred American humour.)(I'm only sorry I know so little
about funny stuff from the rest of the world.) Secondly, i
had to subdivide the list into comedians, comedy actors, comedy writers, humourists, cartoonists, and musical comedians.

Writing as a Brit.,Hancock,Jackie Mason,Milligan,Phil
Silvers Show,Tom Sharpe, Johnny Hart, Scott Adams,Lenny
Henry, Larry and many others are funny for me.

(Yes,I think Borge was funny,and he went down well when
he came to England).

Les D., Seinfeld, Chris Rock,Jimmy Carr,Bob Monkhouse,
any comedian who thinks that swear words,toilets and sex
are inherently funny, (and many others I've forgotten) don't do
it for me.

And no amount of protesting, sneering,putting down will
really get to me (just thought I'd save you the bother).

it's a relief for me to have my 'own' views and not have
to have the crowd, reviewers, or box-office receipts as a crutch
to rely on to instruct me who I like. Still less do I need laughter tracks to tell me what to find funny - they put me off more than almost anything.

So you see,McGrath, that's why I thought your first post
up to the 'and yet..' bit was on the money.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Azizi
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:30 AM

Good points,

"culture, education, memory and experience all play a part in what is funny".

That's "spot on" [I think I learned that phrase from reading it on Mudcat]-

As to education, at first I thought you meant formal education [attendance at schools, university}, but then you gave your Mary Shelley example and I realized that you probably also meant informal learning from reading and otherwise].

My point about culture is that when we are learning about what is humorous and what is not, it's usually done informally or done in corrective mood [when we are scolded by parents, teachers or other authority figures for laughing at something that we shouldn't].

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 08:47 AM

I suppose whether we like it or not it's subjective.

I like to think that there are things you can state categoricaly are or are not funny, but if I'm honest with myself then I have to admit that standards are subjective.

There are different reasons why things are funny to some but not to others:

you might "get" the joke or not.

you might be personally upset by the joke or not.

you might be bored by or tickled by its simplicity or crapness

you might feel that it it too offensive or wonderfully crass.

It might make you feel physically sick with nausea or uncontrollable laughter.

It might be insensitive or irreverant.

It might be witty or stuffy

It might be clever or pompous


I've tried to list ideas here to show how every genre of humour that I can think of (off the cuff and I've repeated myself really) is either funny or not depending on how you see it - who you are.


I think a lot of it has to do with the confidence of the joker and te receptiveness of their audience.

Anything there to be developed?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 08:51 AM

As for the UK USA divide, or any other for that matter, don't forget that the best (mutually agreed) american sitcoms do well on bothh sides of the atlantic, as is the case with stand ups and films etc.

I've found that, what I see to be good humour, translates pretty well all over the world. And I've been to a few places hither and thither in my time.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 08:55 AM

Liz - you owe me a new keyboard - the sound picture conjured up by the actions of your family just got me started - I'll be grinning all day at that one.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 09:12 AM

I think language must play a part, too. I've known people who were born and bred in Italy, Germany, Russia, and Mexico. The jokes they find funniest in their native languages never do anything for me. For what it's worth, Italian jokes strike me as the dumbest; perhaps in Italian...

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 11:04 AM

I accuse my Beautiful Wife of having no sense of humor. Which is unfair, because not QUITE true.

But not infrequently I'll tell her a joke, and she doesn't get it. She says, "Explain it to me."   Whether I do or not, it's a lost cause. She won't find it funny.

You can't explain a joke. It's either funny to a given person or it's not.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: JennyO
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 11:23 AM

I know how you feel Dave. I used to have the same problem with my mother when I was growing up. It was very frustrating trying to tell her jokes. You would get to the punchline, and she would say something like "Yes, and what happened then?" and I'd say "that was it." and try to explain it. Then she would sometimes say later that she did get it, and it was quite funny (without the slightest hint of a smile) - but it was obvious she was just pretending.

At first I tended to take it personally, thinking there was something wrong with the way I was telling it, but after a while I realised it wasn't me at all. She was that way with everybody. She was intelligent enough to be an English teacher, but she seemed to have had her sense of humour surgically removed. It reminds me of something I've heard kids say when they hear a weak joke "That was so funny I forgot to laugh!"

In contrast to her, my dad had a great sense of humour. I like to think I have inherited my sense of humour from him.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 12:00 PM

Okay - say something funny.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 12:08 PM

Pedantic note: whichever side of the Atlantic you dress on, it's always humorous, never humourous. On the other hand that doesn't apply to humourless/humorless. Don't ask me why.
............................

Myself I'm quite likely to find myself wanting to laugh any time I see someone fall over on the ice, irrespective of whether I think they are good guys or bad guys. Even when I'm sorry for them, say some aspiring athlete in a skating competition. If I thought they were injured, that'd probably stop me.

I was just going to write about that being, at base, a sense of relief that it wasn't me - but then I realised I'd probably find it funny if I fell over and didn't hurt myself. Though of course, there'd be a sense of relief involved in that too.
..............
That sense of embarrassment at not being an insider, not being in on the joke - what I had in mind was the way that people will quite often make like they are enjoying some bit of social bullying, or some racist joke session, and so forth, when they aren't actually seeing it as funny at all.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: autolycus
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 01:26 PM

Why you'd want to be on the inside of something like that is, so far, beyond me.

I don't think genres in themselves are funny or not.

2 quote I like.


"You see the character of a person best in what they find funny."

    (Goethe)



The humourist Richard Armour defined humour with simple brilliance as,





      "funny stuff"






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 01:34 PM

There are many other facets that cause something to be funny (or not). I'm thinking of things like timing, expression, vocal intonation, whether or not you yourself smile during the telling of the joke (some jokes will stand that and others not). The answer to the title of this thread has some very profound/deep implications.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 02:09 PM

"Why you'd want to be on the inside of something like that is, so far, beyond me."

But it happens - and in a way it's quite encouraging to remember that it happens. Someone who is playing along with various types of unpleasantness out of fear of embarrassment, or fear of becoming a victim themselves may not be too admirable, but they are less worrying than someone who really is enjoying it. They are the soft underbelly of the beast.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 02:22 PM

"Okay - say something funny."

Now?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 02:24 PM

I never "got into" Benny Hill, but I know people "over here" who think he was hilarious. On the other hand, I love Spike Milligan, the Gooons, Monty Python, and others. On this side, Phil Silvers, Red Skelton, the Smothers Brothers, and more can get me laughing. Moms Mayblee could, Phyllis Diller couldn't.

There is, I think, something in humor that is universal. Seeing a pompous ass take a fall or seeing a windbag's balloon pricked by a deftly aimed verbal dart can be hilarious (assuming that the injury suffered is to the ego and not to the body -- broken bones aren't funny). Another aspect are things that are surprisingly out of the ordinary, and the Pythons are good examples of this.

Just some initial thoughts on an interesting subject.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 04:56 PM

No one really knows.

One thousand people all agree that "something" is positively the funniest thing they have ever seen/heard. Along comes Jack who the thousand also agree is the funniest with the best sense of humor. They let Jack experience the "something" and for some inexplicable reason, he finds it unfunny.   Three days later Jack dies laughing over the same thing.

I love "Blazing Saddles." It ranks as one of my Top Ten movies and yet the first time I saw it, I never laughed once. Nothing was bothering me, I felt fine, etc. Someone wrangled me into seeing it again on a date and I couldn't stop laughing. I was literally on the floor of the theatre at one point.

Steve Allen wrote some great stuff on this subject concluding that he too had no idea.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:03 PM

I did the same in a WC Fields movie in Montreal. I was asked to leave the theatre.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:03 PM

. . . but I failed to find that funny.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,melsef
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:04 PM

'"Okay - say something funny."

Now?'


Nope, wait - wait for it - wait - - NOW!

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: bobad
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:12 PM

Scientists locate funny bone ( it's in the brain - giving a whole new meaning to the term "bonehead")

From here
        
Wednesday, 29 November 2000

The brain may have a "funny bone", a finding that may explain why some stroke victims lose their sense of humour.

"A small part of the frontal lobes appears critical to our ability to recognise a joke," said Dean Shibata of the University of Rochester School of Medicine.

"Although the purpose of humour and laughter is still largely unknown despite 2000 years of speculation, having a sense of humour is a key part of our personalities and it can play a powerful role in balancing negative emotions, such as fear," he said.

Reuters report that Shibata and colleagues released their findings at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Their finding was based on the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map activity in the brains of 13 people exposed to humour in four different tests.

"There have been few studies of humour's place in the brain, but understanding the basis of positive emotions will likely be as helpful as understanding the negative ones," he said.

"In the future, scans of brain activity might be used routinely by psychiatrists to assess patients who have mood disorders such as depression, which often is accompanied by a loss of humour," he added.

The study said the brain may help explain why people who suffer a stroke involving the lower frontal lobes of the brain have alterations of personality, including loss of their sense of humour.

The same part of the brain is also associated with social and emotional judgement and planning, the study said.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:13 PM

See? That worked. It is a matter of timing. Like the old one about the comics who'd numbered their jokes to save time at conventions.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:17 PM

Yes, yes, just like it! Um, why don't you tell that one again?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Bert
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:18 PM

Bill D's fart story is funny. Ask him to tell it again.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:19 PM

I heard it different. I heard it.......147!!!!

I think it has better nuance that way.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:26 PM

The old vaudevillans, folks like Red Skelton, Phil Silvers, Bob Hope, and others, could start a skit with one another without practice, live on stage by whispering a set of key words. They could also change the skit in mid-performance by using key words they knew and the audience would think was part of the presentation.

And there were several hundred of these skits...memorized.

My youngest brother was fortunate to tour, right out of college, with a Toby show, a copy of one of the plays was taped and is now in the Smithsonian. In addition to learning how to set up a BIG tent in a high wind, he learned several of the old skits and their cue words. In Minnesota that summer he was lucky enough to "do" one with Red Skelton -- who promptly changed what they were doing in mid-skit!

Corny -- oh boy were these corny! And funny, too.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 05:43 PM

The comics go to a convention. One brings a new guy. After supper, a comic stood and said, "142." Place laughed. Another stood and said, "147." The place broke up. The new guy wanted to try so he stood and said, "94." The place went silent. He was embarrassed and so he sat. He asked the guy next to him, "What did I do wrong?" Fellow said, "Some people just can't tell a joke."

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:16 PM

Hey! That reminds me:

As I said, sometimes I watch America's Funniest Home Videos. With the evidence in front of me that babies have funny bones, the question comes up: At what age do babies get a sense of humour?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:22 PM

Stop it! This is silly!

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:25 PM

Funny you should say that.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:26 PM

ok - "that"

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:44 PM

To answer your question, Ebbie: After they get over the shock of being violently tossed out of the warm, safe, womb and get their bearings in the cold, dangerous world they realize that a sense of humour is all that's going to keep them sane because they sure as heck ain't gettin' out alive.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:22 PM

Ya think?

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 10:03 AM

The puzzle is, how people do develop their sense of what is funny and what is not funny? And how does that vary. For example, stuff like the kind of confusion that sometimes crops up in the Mudcat, when jokes get taken as serious, and irony gets misinterpreted, or the iother way round.

That sort of thing applies between different countries, different sexes, different age groups, and also just between different people. I wonder if anyone has ever done one of those separated-at-birth-twins type of studies, to help find out how far it's cultural and how far it's wired into us.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 10:16 AM

Funniest thing I've heard in a long time was Donuel's story about the marshmallows and the fire at the house of one of their neighbours.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 10:54 AM

I sat here staring at the screen, thinking "fart story? What fart story?"...I don't tell fart stories......

then it hit me..so, from 5 years ago



"years ago, my ex-wife and I were standing in the den talking to a friend..(TOTALLY forget who now..)...when suddenly, I felt a buildup of gas in my nether regions...and *brrrrrraaappp*...I let loose with an enormous fart!...well, there was this awkward pause, as I tried to summon some apology...when, from my wife there came this tiny little *poot*..about .072% the size of mine. She looked up innocently, and with a perfectly straight face says, "It took me a minute to think of the answer."


It still makes me giggle.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Splott Man
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:03 AM

Where human achievement falls short of human aspiration you have comedy.


I heard that from a comedy actor years ago on a chat show. I don't know whether he coined it.

Though that doesn't explain what I find funny and what you find funny.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:16 AM

Ah Bill, that was the fart joke I liked best!!!

I have a running verbal battle with a chap at work. When he made some sarcastic comment, I was called upon to reply. I looked him in the eye and said 'I would indulge in a battle of wits but I don't fight with unarmed opponants'. The measure of the man is that he took several minutes to work that one out whilst the onlooker who requested my input fell off her chair laughing.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:22 AM

I wrote a clever post on the now deleted thread, but I won't ask to have it restored just so I can prove it... ;>)...but it referred to my wish to 'start over' in life and write about humor, as I agree with Peace that "The answer to the title of this thread has some very profound/deep implications."

Indeed, Red Skelton was one of the funniest men alive, because he could see variations on a theme and improvise on the spur of the moment (like my ex-wife and the fart) and keep you laughing long after most comics had exhausted their 'written' material.
   I saw Robin Williams explain some of why it works once...though he could NOT explain HOW he learned to do it...he just said that you practice 'associating' things in different ways, and learn which of them work. (Of course, his particular type of humor does not appeal to everyone).

   I particularly like humor that makes a point about life....and especially so if it punctures some stuffy idea held by those who do NOT see the point.

Like this, for example

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:44 AM

The funniest joke I ever heard was from Pat Sky about 40 years ago. I still laugh because I find it funny and that's 40 years after hearing it for the first time. It seems to have echoes of echoes in it, and it was funny the first time because it was new, and funny the hundredth time because it keeps its newness. It took me 20 years to learn to tell it aloud properly.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Scoville
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:47 AM

I think Jesus of the Week is pretty funny but I know some religious people who would disagree.

I think Lileks is funny, too, and less likely to make Baptists mad.

And I think Buster Keaton is funny. Funnier than Charlie Chaplin.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:57 PM

Love that Lileks site, Scoville. But you should put a warning notice on the link: "May prove addictive and cost you hours of valuable time...". Kinda Mudcat-like that way.


A

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Bert
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 04:13 PM

Not THIS

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Becca72
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 04:52 PM

BillD...ROFLMAO...that was a great fart joke!

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 05:14 PM

I've sat down with people from other countries with whom I've shared not one word in common. People from China, India, Lithuania, Ghana, Mexico to name but a few and made connections with those people during which time we have been creased up with laughter based on mutual understanding of things where we knew of each other that we both "got it".

Likewise, I have tried to explain to people who have the same first language as me, and who are equally as proficient in it as I am, why I find something funny and the understandng has simply not been there.

Humour transcends every rule, and it breaks down every barrier - eventually - well ... nearly every barrier then ...

It builds trust, it calms down arguments, it starts friendships, and it makes sorrow and hardship easier to bear.

So go stick your head in a pig!

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 05:36 PM

Oh yeah, and it also makes people paranoid, starts fights, and cn turn a bad time into a complete nightmare.

And if you disagree I'll irrigate your colon.   ~:~

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 05:55 PM

Also, I got into Mudcat in the first place because of
a thread about the 3 minute egg. I nearly hur myself
laughing reading that thread, one of the funniest things
I've read in years. So many thanks again to its contributors.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:39 PM

humerus or not?

A bone of contention!

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: JennieG
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:59 PM

A sense of humour can be a very odd thing; some folks got it, some don't. I'm sure some people have had theirs surgically removed, or perhaps it was never given to them in the first place.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:05 PM

Depends on the radius

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:05 PM

Ach! I'm only ribbing you ...

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:06 PM

Who dares call me spineless!

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:06 PM

You're telling fibia's

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:07 PM

ouch ....









... my funny bone

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:33 PM

tee hee ...









... my funny boner ...


(I'll get my coat)

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 09:31 PM

(it's about time!) ;>)

(What is NOT necessarily funny is every possible pun or play on words that can be wrenched out of a situation....it can be 'interesting' to see who can find the most twists, but 'funny' twists are harder to come by.)

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: bobad
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 09:38 PM

minds ignorant of stern miraculous
this every truth-beware of heartless them
(given the scalpel,they dissect a kiss;
or,sold the reason,they undream a dream)

ee cummings

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 09:47 PM

Faced with putting on a happy face for the Olympics a goverment committee were told that clean streets ere not enough. It seems only 2% of of the average Chinese will smile or acknowledge a stranger in a friendly manner.
To remedy this, a group of 40 people went out to educate the people on the street of Beijing by smiling and hugging people in order to explain the need for a more friendly continence for the upcoming Olympics.
Within 20 minutes they were all arrested by the police.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: bobad
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 09:50 PM

"Within 20 minutes they were all arrested by the police."

That would probably be the same reaction in New York City.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 10:19 PM

Ever heard of Irish Alzheimers?

We forget everything but the grudges.

Now that is funny...........

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:37 PM

Years ago, I read an interview (I think it was with Benny Hill who was popular in Europe as well as Britain at the time) where he explained the difference between British humo(u)r and German humo(u)r.

'The British find it funny if a man dressed as a little old lady slips on a banana peel and falls down.
In Germany, it has to be a real little old lady!'

Seamus

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 09:21 AM

I'm a bit twisted that way   ='O

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 10:20 AM

We say "That's funny, that's not funny" when what we really mean is "I find that funny, I don't find that funny".

Rather similar to the way we say "You are annoying me" when what we mean is "I am getting annoyed with you.".

Or to stretch it a little further: "Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.
........................
Try that smiling and hugging in London and you probably wouldn't be arrested, because there wouldn't be any police around to do it. But you'd probably get thumped, if you were a bloke anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Lox
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 02:17 PM

Yeah - any lasses up for smiling and hugging passers by around where I live need have no concerns about eliciting animosity from me!








Nor lads    8^"

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 02:41 PM

for McGrath:

The objective of this study was to estimate how much of an individual's appreciation of humour is influenced by genetic factors, the shared environment or the individual's unique environment. A population-based classical twin study of 127 pairs of female twins (71 monozygous (MZ) and 56 dizygous (DZ) pairs) aged 20-75 from the St Thomas' UK Adult Twin Registry elicited responses to five 'Far Side' Larson cartoons on a scale of 0-10. Within both MZ and DZ twin pairs, the tetrachoric correlations of responses to all five cartoons were significantly greater than zero. Furthermore, the correlations for MZ and DZ twins were of similar magnitude and in some cases the DZ correlation was greater than that of the MZ twins. This pattern of correlations suggests that shared environment rather then genetic effects contributes to cartoon appreciation. Multivariate model-fitting confirmed that these data were best explained by a model that allowed for the contribution of the shared environment and random environmental factors, but not genetic effects. However, there did not appear to be a general humour factor underlying responses to all five cartoons and no effect of age was seen. The shared environment, rather than genetic factors, explains the familial aggregation of humour appreciation as assessed by the specific 'off the wall' cognitive type of cartoons used in this study. (from: Twin Res. 2000 Mar;3(1):17-22.)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What's funny?
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 03:14 PM

Speaking of genetics, my daughter's father tended to be poker faced (He's less so now, as he's gotten older). I laid it to the fact that his mother had died when he was three years old and he was reared by a series of relatives. I thought that he had developed a noncommittal expression in self defense.

However, by the time our daughter was four years old it alarmed me that her face resembled his inexpressiveness. She had not lived with her father since she was a baby- we had divorced early on- so she wasn't consciously copying him.

There was no way I wanted her to live with that face so I bought a bunch of small inexpensive toys I knew she'd like and then one by one I gave them to her, telling her things like: Now say, For me?! Thank you! How pretty!

You get the idea. I did this a couple of days in a row. She still remembers the drill.

I don't know if it is what did the trick but you couldn't find a more expressive, demonstrative person anywhere!