Engaging Humor

Notes

Notes Preface 1. The term “humor” in English has a history, and its meaning has changed rather dramatically over the course of several centuries. I mean by “humor” an amusementprovoking stimulus that is recognized as such by someone who smiles or laughs, is disposed to smile or laugh, or even rejects the enticement to smile or laugh. 2. Childhood also succumbs to notions of triviality as noted by Brian Sutton-Smith in “Psychology of Childlore: The Triviality Barrier,” Western Folklore 29 (1970): 1–8. Chapter 1: Appropriate Incongruity Redux 1. For a broader discussion of this concept, see Elliott Oring, Jokes and Their Relations (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), pp. 1–15. 2. This is a distinction that is often made, for example, by Sigmund Freud in The Standard Edition of the Complete PsychologicalWorks of Sigmund Freud, trans.under the general editorship of James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud,24 vols.(London: Hogarth Press and the Institute for Psycho-Analysis, 1953–74) (hereafter cited as SE), 8:90–91. 3. Admittedly this is a weak joke, since nothing about payment had been previously established. 4. For the sake of brevity, I often refer to the perception of appropriate incongruity simply as “appropriate incongruity.” However, appropriate incongruity always depends upon a perception and is not to be construed as an objective quality of the percept. If appropriate incongruity is not perceived, there is no humor. 5. James Beattie,Essays: On Poetry and Music, as They Effect the Mind; On Laughter and Ludicrous Composition; On the Utility of Classical Learning (Edinburgh:W. Creech,1778), p. 347. 6. Jerry M. Suls, “A Two-Stage Model for the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons: An Information-Processing Analysis,” in The Psychology of Humor: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Issues, ed. Jeffrey H. Goldstein and Paul E. McGhee (New York: Academic Press, 1972), p. 84; Jerry M. Suls, “Cognitive and Disparagement Theories of Humor: A Theoretical and Empirical Synthesis,” in It’s a Funny Thing, Humour, ed.Antony J.Chapman and Hugh C. Foot (Oxford: Pergamon, 1977), p. 41. 7. Suls, “Cognitive and Disparagement Theories.” 8. Freud, SE, 8:31. 9. For example, Paul E. McGhee, Humor: Its Origin and Development (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1979), p. 42; John Morreall, ed., The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), p. 187. 10. Such incongruities also excite laughter in the case of absurd humor, which will be considered in the next chapter. 11. McGhee, Humor, pp. 131–33. 12. Brian Sutton-Smith, “A Developmental Structural Account of Riddles,” in Speech Play: Research and Resources for the Study of Linguistic Creativity, ed.Barbara KirshenblattGimblett , (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976), p. 118. 13. McGhee, Humor, p. 133. 14. Thomas R.Schultz discovered that children often create their own incongruities and resolutions to cartoon humor that are not in keeping with those intended by the artist. See “The Role of Incongruity and Resolution in Children’s Appreciation of Cartoon Humor,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 13 (1972): 474–75. 15. We are speaking of American children or, at most, children in English-speaking or Western countries, and then only some subset of these. 16. The issue of Aristotelian definition was raised by Gregory Schrempp in “Our Funny Universe: On Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Oring’s Theory of Humor, and Other Appropriate Incongruities,” Humor 8 (1995): 219–28. See also Kanavillil Rajagopalan, “Austin’s Humorous Style of Philosophical Discourse in Light of Schrempp’s Interpretation of Oring’s ‘Incongruity Theory’ of Humor,” Humor 13 (2000): 287–311. 17. Except, perhaps, in those cases in which the fraudulence of human rationality is intimated. 18. See Ted Cohen, “Metaphor and the Cultivation of Intimacy,” Critical Inquiry 5 (1978): 10. See also Joseph Stanley, ed., Dictionary of World Literature (Totowa N.J.: Little field Adams, 1968), s.v. “metaphor.” 19. Actually, the two senses of spring are related, as they stem from a notion of “moving or rising suddenly.” Conventional usage of these words, however, has suppressed this semantic connection. 20. It would not be difficult to generate numerous humorous definitions of people by utilizing the same spurious technique: “Man is the only animal to paint its toenails”; “Man is the only animal to think it looks good in Bermuda shorts”; “Man is the only animal to pay eight dollars for a movie ticket.” 21. It should be noted that Gary Larson’s mother is named Doris, and she apparently takes photos at all...