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Re: different senses of humour

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Dean BedfordMar 24, 2007
 

 
On Sunday, March 25, 2007, at 05:07 AM, Nathan Leonard wrote:

> Dean:
> It's interesting that the writer starts out by saying it's "guff" to say
> the English sense of humour is superior to everyone else's - but then
> argues it's at least more prevalent than everyone else's.
>
> Her point was that the English aren't necessarily funnier than any
> other culture, but everything that we do has at least an undercurrent
> of humour, even if it's something subtle like irony or understatement.

Yeah I understood what was being said. I was just making this small
point. If person X makes 20 jokes an hour, and person Y makes three
jokes an hour - who would you say is funnier? It's just a minor comment
on the way she put things - I am a writer for a living, so I'm always
interested in how thoughts are expressed.

I think there is an inherent difficulty about saying who is funnier, or
even that someone places more importance on humour than anyone else
because we're all different. Even if you put it in a "cultural" setting.
Here's me, for example, who gives over lots, even most, of my spare time
to pursuit of laughter and devotion to a comedy show. But I very much
doubt though that my workmates would think me to have a better sense of
humour than average - probably the opposite actually.

But I don't say she's wrong - I rather wish I'd been able to spend more
time in Britain so I could have a more informed view on it.

If she is right it's something Britain should be promoting to tourists,
don't you think... "Britain - place of laughter", "You get more jokes
per hour in the UK", "U-K, you laugh". A better tourist attraction than
the Royals, I reckon! :-)

D

PS. I wonder how New Zealand rates. I rather suspect we might be even
more uptight than the Americans. Sigh...

 
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