Welcome to Learned, a short, weekly look at language, education, and everything else under the sun. I’m Joel, linguist, teacher, slacker. This week, we're doubling up.
subscribe | unsubscribe | comments | twitter | about
(FYI: There's a lot of swearing in this one. It's comedy, you know?)
One of the best things every thrown up by a Tumblr user is a page called Fucking Home Page. It is a daily foul-mouthed list of links to ways to better your life, your mind, or the world around you. It's fucking great. Today, February 1st, one of their links is called "How to Make Motherfuckers Like You." And, well, my mind went immediately to this:
Now, obviously, that's not what FHP meant. Indeed, their link takes you to the Amazon listing for "How to Make People Like You: 19 Science-Based Methods to Increase Your Charisma, Spark Attraction, Win Friends, and Connect Effortlessly." (But you know, I think I'd rather have a clone even if he is only one-eighth my size.) This got me thinking about the elements of comedy.
There are three primary theories of humor: Relief Theory - the punchline relieves tension and allows everyone to relax after a buildup, Superiority Theory - we laugh because we are better in some way (smarter, more capable) than whatever has happened to someone else, and Incongruous Juxtaposition Theory - two ideas or concepts that do not normally appear in the same context are suddenly smushed together.
Far be it from me to explain the joke to you, but Fucking Homepage falls squarely into the incongruity camp. The juxtaposition of an abrupt, strong swearword combined with the generally positive, self-improvement content is funny. Whether my mis-reading of "making people" falls into the same category is a matter of some debate. The Incongruous Juxtaposition theory has spun off several sub-theories, and this kind of mistake, intentional or not, could also be classified as an example of Semantic theory or General theory, where the focus is on words and how they're used to convey or create meanings aside from those intended by the speaker or writer.
But I can already tell that your next question is, so fucking what? If it's funny, it's funny and why ruin a joke by explaining it? (Too late!)
Humor is subjective, of course, within very broad limits most of us find the same kinds of things funny. As individuals, however... For myself, I've always laughed hardest at absurdist humor. My favorite comedic bit of all time is John Cleese at a desk in the middle of the stream, deadpanning "And now for something completely different." And then he explodes. It is, truly, the funniest damned thing I've ever seen no matter how many times I see it. But a close second favorite is purely linguistic humor. And by that I mean when comics play with language itself. Think of George Carlin's Football vs. Baseball or Mitch Hedberg's...any routine, really. And lately, I've been reading a lot about semantics and semiotics; I'm wondering how much of this is universal and how much depends on the language?
In Japan, much of the humor found on t.v. falls into either slapstick or punning. There are an endless stream of gameshows where comedians take turns doing stupid things and then getting slapped in the head or otherwise physically reprimanded. But Japan also has a long history of verbal humor, a lot of it completely impenetrable unless you are fluent in the culture and history of the country as well as the language. I'm curious to learn more about whether these verbal forms fit with the linguistic theories of comedy.
And, of course, because we're all sitting around at home a lot these days, I've also been watching a ton of Netflix. There's a show called Comedians Around the World. It is the first time I've heard stand-up comedy in Hindi, German, or French. It's absolutely fascinating (and funny!) Based on that one show, I'd say yes, these theories of comedy appear to be at least somewhat universal. The caveat being that I don't know how closely these international comedians structured their shows to an English-centric stand-up routine. Maybe this is how they usually perform, maybe this was a show tailored to an international audience familiar mainly with English-language comedic rhythms. The answer is, most likely, somewhere in the middle.
To be honest, this is not at all what I had planned for this week's Learned but the listing in FHP really did catch my eye and it is fully in line with what I've been studying and reading this week. And, since this is a newsletter about learning, well, here we are. For anyone wanting to read more on theories of humor, start with the Wikipedia page. It is surprisingly comprehensive and well-sourced. For a more formal look, Stanford University's Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an excellent resource.
subscribe | unsubscribe | comments | twitter | about
That's all for this week. Stay safe, stay sane. Learn something.
Joel