| Arcane
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| 847793. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:12 am |
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The Joke.
Mainstay of comedians, television hosts, Christmas crackers/bon bons, embarrassing fathers/uncles, playgrounds and humour everywhere.
But what is a joke? What are its origins?
A joke is "A thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, esp. a story with a funny punchline." Although, humour to one is not humour to another.
According to this site, that is the timeline of the joke, starting in 1200BC but the site below that puts it even older.
http://www.funny-jokes.arollo.com/origin.html
This site claims to have found the worlds oldest joke.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/07/31/us-joke-odd-idUSKUA14785120080731
Although it's not possible because man and dinosaur did not live in the same timeframe, I prefer the one about the two cavemen talking to each other saying "What do you can an invisible dinosaur?" ... the other shrugs and says he doesn't know. The first caveman says "An i-don't-think-he-saurus...geddit?" (well that's one version).
According to Wiki, this is the worlds funniest joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_funniest_joke
What makes a joke funny?
http://www.funny-jokes.arollo.com/funny.html
And why do we laugh?
http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/laughter.asp
Humour is very subjective, but laughter is something we all need in our lives. So if you know a good joke, or even a bad one, or know something QI about jokes, the joke is not on you! |
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| Ameena
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| 847808. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:41 am |
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In that last link it claims that humans are the only species capable of laughter. However, this may not be the case, unless the bloke in the following link is mistaken in ihs research...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-admRGFVNM
Whether he's right about it or not I still find it amazingly cute ;). |
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| Arcane
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| 847809. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:44 am |
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Heheheh. It is cute! However, do we know whether it's laughter, or they could be making that noise through annoyance! Imagine being in a glass cage and some human does that to you XD
Also, I don't have time to look now, but do any of the primates laugh? Any brain activity been measured to see if it equates with human laughter? |
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| djgordy
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| 847811. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:47 am |
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| Arcane wrote: |
Although it's not possible because man and dinosaur did not live in the same timeframe, I prefer the one about the two cavemen talking to each other saying "What do you can an invisible dinosaur?" ... the other shrugs and says he doesn't know. The first caveman says "An i-don't-think-he-saurus...geddit?" (well that's one version). |
The only way that would make sense is if the cavemen were invsible*.
Anyway, isn't that joke just a poor retelling of the one from "Jurassic Park"?
Timmy - What do you call a blind dinosaur?
Dr Grant - I don't know, what do you call a blind dinosaur?
Timmy - Doyouthinkhesaurus. What do you call a blind dinosaur's dog?
Dr. Grant - You got me.
Timmy - Doyouthinkhesaurus rex.
*Although one might argue that an invisible dinosaur would necessarily be blind as light would pass right through its retinas. |
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| Arcane
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| 847812. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:51 am |
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Jokes are re-told in many forms, poor or not, I'm sure you have some of your own, djgordy.
Does anyone have information about cultural differences in jokes? (I guess suze may be the expert in that!) For example, do Japanese jokes different in what is humourus and not from other cultures? Jokes from South America? |
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| Spud McLaren
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| 847814. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:53 am |
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| Arcane wrote: | | Heheheh. It is cute! However, do we know whether it's laughter, or they could be making that noise through annoyance! Imagine being in a glass cage and some human does that to you XD |
The rats apparently bond with the tickler and will follow the hand around the cage, as can be seen in the clip. They wouldn't do that if they were averse to it. And see link below.
| Arcane wrote: | | Also, I don't have time to look now, but do any of the primates laugh? Any brain activity been measured to see if it equates with human laughter? |
Does this help? |
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| djgordy
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| 847815. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:54 am |
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| Arcane wrote: | I'm sure you have some of your own, djgordy.
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I am pleased to say that I am entirely lacking a sense of humour. Jokes are just the means by which the "comedians" (i.e capitalists) seek too distract the "audience" (i.e the proletariat) from the work of preparing for the forthcoming revolution. |
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| Arcane
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| 847816. Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:57 am |
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Oh crikey, do I have to read up on socialist humour now?
Why did the Marxist-Socialist cross the road?
To get to the Marxist-Socialist sit-in on the other side of the road. |
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| djgordy
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| 847817. Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:03 am |
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| Arcane wrote: | | socialist humour now? |
When I was at university some students decided to hold a competition amongst themselves to see who was the most socialist. I refused to take part on the grounds that competitions were only designed to create an artificial hierarchy in society and that a person's intrinsic worth could not be determined by such reactionary, counter-revolutionary means.
So I won. |
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| CB27
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| 847837. Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:45 am |
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| It's a Sunday, so am too tired to look up properly, but I think I either read or saw a programme about evolved human behaviour, and that when it came to laughing, it was decided that most jokes relied on an unexpected punchline which suggested it started as a defence mechanism, which is why grinning and laughing exposes the teeth. |
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| CB27
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| 847838. Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:46 am |
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| Or it could be I made it up myself :) |
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| Spud McLaren
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| 847840. Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:50 am |
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| Seems to me that a lot of humour relies on a sudden switch from one viewpoint to another, the more unexpected the better. So how does it work when you can see a situation/punchline a mile off, but it's still extremely funny? Is it all to do with delivery and timing? I'm sure we've all experienced a line being said where the content itself was not funny, but the delivery made it so. |
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| Spud McLaren
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| 847841. Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:54 am |
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| Perhaps there's laughter generated by the sudden safe release of the tension in the build-up of the joke (or real-life situation, come to that). Which may be why many people aren't comfortable with extreme slapstick comedy in which people actually get hurt. |
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| Leith
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| 848018. Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:46 pm |
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| CB27 wrote: | | It's a Sunday, so am too tired to look up properly, but I think I either read or saw a programme about evolved human behaviour, and that when it came to laughing, it was decided that most jokes relied on an unexpected punchline which suggested it started as a defence mechanism, which is why grinning and laughing exposes the teeth. |
That sounds familiar. I've just been re-reading Phantoms in the Brain, by V. S. Ramachandran, in which he puts forward a theory along those lines. The abstract from his associated academic paper summarizes the hypothesis that laughter evolved as a 'false alarm' indicator:
| V. S. Ramachandran wrote: | Laughter (and humor) involves the gradual build-up of expectation (a model) followed by a sudden twist or anomaly that entails a change in the model — but only as long as the new model is non-threatening - so that there is a deflation of expectation. The loud explosive sound is produced, we suggest, to inform conspecifics that there has been a ‘false alarm’, to which they need not orient. The same logic may underlie tickling (menacing approach followed by a light non-threatening contact). Thus tickling may serve as ‘play’, a rehearsal for adult laughter. And lastly, when one primate encounters another, he may have always begun with a threat gesture —to bare his canines — but upon recognizing the individual as kin he may stop the grimace halfway and ‘smile’.
When the insular cortex is damaged, patients giggle in response to pain, presumably because they can still sense the pain ('danger') but the pain is no longer aversive (‘false alarm’), thereby fulfilling the two key requirements for laughter. |
(Abstract from "The neurology and evolution of humor, laughter, and smiling: the false alarm theory", V.S. Ramachandran - Medical Hypotheses, 1998)
Can't find a freely available copy of the full paper on-line, I'm afraid, but here's the source of the abstract:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987798900615 |
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| bobwilson
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| 848081. Sun Sep 18, 2011 7:56 pm |
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Not having done any academic research (or even bothered to read the papers of those who have) I'm a bit wary of criticising but
| Quote: | | Laughter (and humor) involves..... |
isn't that fundamentally flawed? It assumes that laughter and humour are, if not the same, then at least inextricably linked.
Laughter occurs in many situations - the most obvious not-necessarily humourous one being excessive tickling. And humour certainly exists both in situations without laughter, and without a "gradual build-up of expectation (a model) followed by a sudden twist or anomaly that entails a change in the model". |
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