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Revision as of 17:30, 27 September 2002 by David spector (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Humour (Humor in American English) is a form of entertainment that is intended to make someone laugh and have a good time. The origins of the word are in the humoural medicine of the ancient Greeks, the word meaning fluid.
To help you look further:
- Clowns
- Comedy and Comedians
- Comedy film
- Comics
- Internet humor
- Jokes
- Practical jokes and pranks
- Professional homour like lawyer jokes
- Toilet humour
There are different types of humour which appeal to different sectors of humanity - for instance, Slapstick is particularly popular with young children, while satire tends to be more popular with the older and better-educated. Humour usually is localized and does not easily transfer from one culture to another. This happens because a large amount of humour is very context sensitive and someone whom does not understand the context will usually not understand the humour. Various techniques are used to deliver humour:
- Slapstick
- Joke
- Sarcasm
- Satire
- Parody
- Practical joke: deliberately luring someone into a humourous position and then laughing at their expense
- Silly acts inappropriate for the situation or age of person
- Fake stern manner that is inappropriate in a comic setting
- Ridiculous gestures and movements
- Deliberate ambiguity and confusion with reality (such as in Andy Kaufman's humour)
- Play of words such as oxymorons, puns etc.
- Unexpected outcome, such as a witty punchline.
- Wittiness, as in many one-liner.
- Absurdity
- Triple
- Irony
- Humorous "laws" such as Murphy's law
- Self inflicted ambarassing situation, e.g. losing the swim trunk after a dive etc.
- Self-degradation (such as in Rodney Dagerfield's humor)
- Faking stupidity
- Pointing out real stupidity (such as the Darwin Awards)
- Stereotyping (such as blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, racial jokes etc.)
- Inflicting pain (such as kick in the groin or in the movie "Home Alone", etc)
there are many more
It has been claimed that humour cannot be explained. However, attempts can be made, such as this one:
Perhaps the essence of humour is the presentation of something familar to a person, so they think they know the natural follow-on thought or conclusion, then providing a twist through presentation of the opposite of what was expected, or else the natural result of interpreting the original situation in a different, less common, way. For example .