I’ve been noticing for the last several months a particular usefulness for my personal definitions of comedic terms.\u00a0 I thought I’d take a moment to share with you my definitions for the words “funny” and “joke” for what those definitions\u00a0might benefit you.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
I work a lot of time in background on film and TV productions.\u00a0 There can be a lot of downtime, which for me can mean social time and silly time with other background actors.\u00a0 Frankly, I like to make people laugh.\u00a0 I get a huge joy out of it and it can come pretty easily for me.\u00a0 Over a short time, my humor can\u00a0turn more and more\u00a0outrageous, and it can test the boundaries of what some people find acceptable or even polite.\u00a0 These people might object to some of my humor or find it even rude.<\/p>\n
When I’ve hit a boundary in a particular person, I might hear that person say, “That’s not funny.”\u00a0 Usually, though, there\u00a0is someone laughing at what I said or did.\u00a0 Sometimes even the person saying “That’s not funny” is laughing!\u00a0 It is around this time that I present my definition of the term “funny.”<\/p>\n
For me, “funny” means “something that makes a person laugh.”\u00a0 If I trip and fall and you laugh, it was funny.\u00a0 Well, at least to you.\u00a0 If I trip and fall and you don’t laugh but instead you are shocked and run to my help, it wasn’t funny.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it didn’t make you laugh.\u00a0 If you were alarmed but I <\/em>laughed, it was funny.<\/p>\n “Joke” is another comedy term.\u00a0 People have a hard time putting into words what a joke is.\u00a0 For me, “a joke” is simply “something designed to make a person laugh.”\u00a0 While a joke could be a story or a pun, it could also be an object, an action, or a stunt.\u00a0 If it was designed, and if that design was intended to make a person laugh, then I would call it “a joke.”<\/p>\n The rebuilding of the World Trade Center is not a joke.\u00a0 It wasn’t designed to make people laugh.\u00a0 Carrot Top’s props are jokes–they’re designed to make people laugh.\u00a0 So is his routine a joke–designed to make people laugh.\u00a0 It makes no difference if the joke is funny (i.e., “makes someone laugh”); a joke requires design and\u00a0intent.<\/p>\n Both of these definitions share a key word, and that word is “something.”\u00a0 In neither definition do I try to give a replacement word for the definiendum.\u00a0 I don’t define “funny” as “hysterical.”\u00a0 I don’t define “joke” as “a sentence.”\u00a0 By\u00a0using the word\u00a0“something,” I leave a lot of important leeway for the use of the words “funny” and “joke.”\u00a0 I also arrive at an extremely practical way to talk about comedy and humor, not getting caught up in overanalysis about the\u00a0essence of funny or the nature of jokes.\u00a0 What’s funny and what’s a joke becomes actually measureable<\/em>.\u00a0 Did someone laugh at it?\u00a0 Then it was that much funny.\u00a0 Was it designed to get someone to laugh?\u00a0 Then it was a joke.<\/p>\n The overlap with general semantics is not just in the careful attention to definition of undefined terms.\u00a0\u00a0The overlap\u00a0is also\u00a0with the lecture I presented in the 2006 Making Sense Conference<\/em> in Ft. Worth, Texas.\u00a0 In that lecture (which kicked off the conference!), I presented an analysis of my own sense of humor.\u00a0 I explain that much of my humor is simply the provision of nonsense when people are expecting sense.\u00a0 Sense and nonsense are relative to people’s theories, definitions, and, in general, expectations.\u00a0 Sense is expected, nonsense is surprising.\u00a0 Since that presentation and the raised awareness about my own sense of humor, I’ve been able to develop and tweak my humor more and actually get better and being funny and joking.\u00a0 General semantics helped me to improve my comedy.\u00a0 (Watch the essay and\/or read the published lecture here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n So there you have it: Alfred Korzybski and his general semantics, influencing comedy.\u00a0 In truth, it’s no joke!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been noticing for the last several months a particular usefulness for my personal definitions of comedic terms.\u00a0 I thought I’d take a moment to share with you my definitions for the words “funny” and “joke” for what those definitions\u00a0might benefit you. *** I work a lot of time in background on film and TV […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[166,172,66,9,179,175,173,174,178,177,180,176],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-alfred-korzbyski","tag-comedy","tag-definiendum","tag-definition","tag-expectations","tag-funny","tag-humor","tag-jokes","tag-nonsense","tag-sense","tag-surprise","tag-undefined-terms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}