As a young engineering and physics student, I was suspicious of the “subtext” and hidden meanings humanities types went on about. Yeah sure some writers might use hidden meanings, but why analyze most texts this way? And analyzing ordinary human conversation in such terms seemed over the top. I thought, “How
Is it bad that the first thought that came into my head was "Oh, that explains dead baby jokes." I interpreted Robin's explanation to mean that something is funny if it violates norms in a way that is harmless. Dead baby jokes (and the hunters joke and the poisoning the husband joke, for that matter) would not be funny if there were a possibility that they could refer to real situations. However, they show that the joke-teller has violated norms (not joking about death or harming babies) in a harmless fashion, so it's funny. Those who think that the joke is harmful won't find it funny. Yes, I did really just analyze dead baby jokes.
In response to JB, I would say the things that I find funny about slipping and falling are actually not in whether or not there was an impact or pain that occurred but more in the hilarity of physical position that occurrs when you lose control of your body for that brief second and try to regain it. The laughter that may come from the fact that you were not hurt would be more linked to relief laughter/ like the nervous kind that comes if you are or were afraid or upset. For me insults are only funny with friends when I know for a fact that there is either a) truth in the insult but I remain sure of the friend's love/acceptance of me anyway or b) the insult is so outlandish that it cannot possibly be true but it would be funny if it were.
I actually have to say the reason why I think the names"Who, What, and I Don't Know" from Who's on First stems from two things: First - I think the choice of names is funny, as in ridiculous incongruous funny. Second - I also find the confusion that stems from their use in subsequent conversation to be funny also. Therefore funny from two directions - doubly funny! The reason why I like this humor so much is not because I think I am better/above/smarter than the person creating the humor but more from the fact that I might make a similar mistake should such a situation arise in my life.
The role of benign in this is interesting and important. Benignity is a very relative thing. I might find some of my grandmothers racist jokes to be not benign (and not funny to me) while she would find many of my sexist and sexual jokes to be not benign, and not funny.
Further, the guy shooting his friend to make sure he is dead, "my best friend ran off with my wife and I miss him" and so on, these are not benign except possibly to the extent they just seem ridiculous. No one would be stupid enough to shoot someone when asked to make sure they are dead, that's the benignity in that one. What's the benignity in "my best friend ran off with my wife and I miss him?" This is a totally realistic situation, people cheat with their friends wives all the time (not often enough for my tastes actually :) ) so it is not unlikeliness that makes it benign. Maybe it is that he misses his friend instead of his wife, that he is not sad to see HER go that makes it benign?
I still like the theory that we find humor generally in things that might seem dangerous/threatening/awkward, but we realize that they are not, or at least not to a great degree. This is why someone slipping and falling can be funny (as long as they aren't really hurt), or why friends laugh when they playfully insult each other.
I think norm violation fits into either awkwardness or potential danger, depending on the kind of norm. But at the basic level, it makes sense to me that laughter is a response to something that might seem negative or threatening, but when we realize it is not, we communicate it by laughing at it. Hence cliched statements along the lines of, "I laugh in the face of danger," i.e., in situations that would make many afraid, I am confident and do not feel threatened.
You know, I think that explains why my friends and I many years ago found the movie "The Exorcist" to be simply hilarious, despite the fact that it was not intended (or so we had been told) to be interpreted as comedy.
Well, lots of people here argue like they think all humor is dependant upon norm violation.Puns are not.And laughter alone could induce laughing in people who hear it.
"A man sent ten different puns to friends in the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did."
I think that the commenter have done a good job of finding jokes that don't fit into the "norm evasion" paradigm, but most of the ones they've found ("Who's On First," "Watson you idiot, someone has stolen our tent," and "Make sure he's dead") easily fit into another paradigm Robin has written about frequently in the past, status signaling.
In those three jokes we are laughing because someone is doing something foolish that I think most of us would presume we are far too smart to do. Most of us would never shoot someone because we misinterpreted a sentence, fail to realize our tent was stolen, and most of us would like to think we'd catch on faster that "Who, What and I Don't Know" are proper names. We are likely laughing to signal that we are superior in intellect to the characters in the jokes, and therefore merit higher status.
I suppose you could argue that this is, in a way, another method of covertly violating social norms, in this case egalitarian norms. Laughing at someone we regard as inferior is probably less likely to invite reprisals for egalitarian norm violation than outright insulting them, especially since laughter is not entirely voluntary.
I find much truth in this description of humor. It reminds me of the varied reactions by critics to the movie Kick Ass. Many aspects of the movie violate norms (nearly all critics agreed on this point). However, they disagreed about the severity/malignancy of the violations. Those who found the violations benign found the movie humorous, those who felt the violations were too egregious found the movie offensive.
There was an Asimov story about why jokes are funny (unfortunately I don't recall the title...) and it had this joke in it:
The husband on the death bed calls his wife: "I have to tell you something before I die. I cheated you with the secretary." To which the wife answers: "I know honey, why else would I have poisoned you?"
It seems to support John Maxwell IV point. The norm violation here is more clearly not benign. It seems funny simply because of the surprising answer. Perhaps the combination is not so much norm violation + benign, but norm violation + surprise? Benign norm violations might be special cases of surprising norm violations, because we usually expect norm violations to matter.
Btw, this theory seems somewhat similar to Ramachandran's theory that laughter is a social signal that a possible threat, and norm violations are just one type of threat, is not really serious (we laugh in order to inform others about the benign nature of an apparent threat).
In both "Who's On First" and the Holmes joke, norms of conversation are violated. We expect to be warned when words are used with atypical meanings. We expect our interlocutors to come to the point more directly than Holmes does here – both to Watson and to the audience of the joke.
(We also expect Abbott to have the sense to recognize why Costello is going nuts; this violation of verisimilitude makes the gag less and less funny for me as it's belabored.)
A further norm is the duty of a fictional character to stay in character. I considered writing that the Holmes joke is no less funny if he says "Yes, Watson, that is indeed a reasonable inference; but I would call your attention to a further inference that you did not mention, namely—". But that would be a fib; there is shock-comedy in deviating from how Holmes customarily speaks (as played by Rathbone; less so if he's played by Brett).
I agree with Katja. The Holmes joke is funny without the insult, and the hunter joke is still funny (though perhaps dark enough to get fewer laughs) if the shot is followed by dying scream. In fact, the premise of that joke is that there is ambiguity about whether the person is dead.
But still, I think the benign violation theory has a lot going for it.
What's the norm violation in Who's on first? (No, What's the guy on second!)
The humor here seems to be pure incongruity between Abbott's meaning and Costello's meanings of the words they're saying and the resulting misunderstanding.
Is it bad that the first thought that came into my head was "Oh, that explains dead baby jokes." I interpreted Robin's explanation to mean that something is funny if it violates norms in a way that is harmless. Dead baby jokes (and the hunters joke and the poisoning the husband joke, for that matter) would not be funny if there were a possibility that they could refer to real situations. However, they show that the joke-teller has violated norms (not joking about death or harming babies) in a harmless fashion, so it's funny. Those who think that the joke is harmful won't find it funny. Yes, I did really just analyze dead baby jokes.
Robin, this is only part of the story. See my essay at the site below
https://sites.google.com/si...
In response to JB, I would say the things that I find funny about slipping and falling are actually not in whether or not there was an impact or pain that occurred but more in the hilarity of physical position that occurrs when you lose control of your body for that brief second and try to regain it. The laughter that may come from the fact that you were not hurt would be more linked to relief laughter/ like the nervous kind that comes if you are or were afraid or upset. For me insults are only funny with friends when I know for a fact that there is either a) truth in the insult but I remain sure of the friend's love/acceptance of me anyway or b) the insult is so outlandish that it cannot possibly be true but it would be funny if it were.
I actually have to say the reason why I think the names"Who, What, and I Don't Know" from Who's on First stems from two things: First - I think the choice of names is funny, as in ridiculous incongruous funny. Second - I also find the confusion that stems from their use in subsequent conversation to be funny also. Therefore funny from two directions - doubly funny! The reason why I like this humor so much is not because I think I am better/above/smarter than the person creating the humor but more from the fact that I might make a similar mistake should such a situation arise in my life.
The role of benign in this is interesting and important. Benignity is a very relative thing. I might find some of my grandmothers racist jokes to be not benign (and not funny to me) while she would find many of my sexist and sexual jokes to be not benign, and not funny.
Further, the guy shooting his friend to make sure he is dead, "my best friend ran off with my wife and I miss him" and so on, these are not benign except possibly to the extent they just seem ridiculous. No one would be stupid enough to shoot someone when asked to make sure they are dead, that's the benignity in that one. What's the benignity in "my best friend ran off with my wife and I miss him?" This is a totally realistic situation, people cheat with their friends wives all the time (not often enough for my tastes actually :) ) so it is not unlikeliness that makes it benign. Maybe it is that he misses his friend instead of his wife, that he is not sad to see HER go that makes it benign?
I just added to this post.
I still like the theory that we find humor generally in things that might seem dangerous/threatening/awkward, but we realize that they are not, or at least not to a great degree. This is why someone slipping and falling can be funny (as long as they aren't really hurt), or why friends laugh when they playfully insult each other.
I think norm violation fits into either awkwardness or potential danger, depending on the kind of norm. But at the basic level, it makes sense to me that laughter is a response to something that might seem negative or threatening, but when we realize it is not, we communicate it by laughing at it. Hence cliched statements along the lines of, "I laugh in the face of danger," i.e., in situations that would make many afraid, I am confident and do not feel threatened.
You know, I think that explains why my friends and I many years ago found the movie "The Exorcist" to be simply hilarious, despite the fact that it was not intended (or so we had been told) to be interpreted as comedy.
Well, lots of people here argue like they think all humor is dependant upon norm violation.Puns are not.And laughter alone could induce laughing in people who hear it.
"A man sent ten different puns to friends in the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did."
I think that the commenter have done a good job of finding jokes that don't fit into the "norm evasion" paradigm, but most of the ones they've found ("Who's On First," "Watson you idiot, someone has stolen our tent," and "Make sure he's dead") easily fit into another paradigm Robin has written about frequently in the past, status signaling.
In those three jokes we are laughing because someone is doing something foolish that I think most of us would presume we are far too smart to do. Most of us would never shoot someone because we misinterpreted a sentence, fail to realize our tent was stolen, and most of us would like to think we'd catch on faster that "Who, What and I Don't Know" are proper names. We are likely laughing to signal that we are superior in intellect to the characters in the jokes, and therefore merit higher status.
I suppose you could argue that this is, in a way, another method of covertly violating social norms, in this case egalitarian norms. Laughing at someone we regard as inferior is probably less likely to invite reprisals for egalitarian norm violation than outright insulting them, especially since laughter is not entirely voluntary.
I find much truth in this description of humor. It reminds me of the varied reactions by critics to the movie Kick Ass. Many aspects of the movie violate norms (nearly all critics agreed on this point). However, they disagreed about the severity/malignancy of the violations. Those who found the violations benign found the movie humorous, those who felt the violations were too egregious found the movie offensive.
There was an Asimov story about why jokes are funny (unfortunately I don't recall the title...) and it had this joke in it:
The husband on the death bed calls his wife: "I have to tell you something before I die. I cheated you with the secretary." To which the wife answers: "I know honey, why else would I have poisoned you?"
It seems to support John Maxwell IV point. The norm violation here is more clearly not benign. It seems funny simply because of the surprising answer. Perhaps the combination is not so much norm violation + benign, but norm violation + surprise? Benign norm violations might be special cases of surprising norm violations, because we usually expect norm violations to matter.
Btw, this theory seems somewhat similar to Ramachandran's theory that laughter is a social signal that a possible threat, and norm violations are just one type of threat, is not really serious (we laugh in order to inform others about the benign nature of an apparent threat).
In both "Who's On First" and the Holmes joke, norms of conversation are violated. We expect to be warned when words are used with atypical meanings. We expect our interlocutors to come to the point more directly than Holmes does here – both to Watson and to the audience of the joke.
(We also expect Abbott to have the sense to recognize why Costello is going nuts; this violation of verisimilitude makes the gag less and less funny for me as it's belabored.)
A further norm is the duty of a fictional character to stay in character. I considered writing that the Holmes joke is no less funny if he says "Yes, Watson, that is indeed a reasonable inference; but I would call your attention to a further inference that you did not mention, namely—". But that would be a fib; there is shock-comedy in deviating from how Holmes customarily speaks (as played by Rathbone; less so if he's played by Brett).
I agree with Katja. The Holmes joke is funny without the insult, and the hunter joke is still funny (though perhaps dark enough to get fewer laughs) if the shot is followed by dying scream. In fact, the premise of that joke is that there is ambiguity about whether the person is dead.
But still, I think the benign violation theory has a lot going for it.
Who's on stage?
What's the norm violation in Who's on first? (No, What's the guy on second!)
The humor here seems to be pure incongruity between Abbott's meaning and Costello's meanings of the words they're saying and the resulting misunderstanding.