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Revision as of 12:03, 1 September 2002 by ChrispyH (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.
Humour cannot be explained
To help you look further:
- Clowns
- Comedy and Comedians
- Comedy film
- Comics
- Internet humor
- Jokes
- Practical jokes
- 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
- 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