Tips on Finding Funny Things
Humor or comedy is usually the tendency of emotional experiences to elicit humor and provide entertainment. The word derives from the Greek humoral, meaning ‘motionless motion’, and the medical philosophy of the ancients, who taught that the state of fluid balance in the body, called humors, controlled emotion and human health. Modern researchers have challenged this long-standing belief.
Funny, in our modern culture, has become associated with sarcasm, satire, exaggeration, wit, and exaggeration. It is generally accepted that there are a number of types of funny. In a study participants viewed more words with the same meaning (e.g., a joke) with those that were funny, on the television screen. Participants then were asked about their feelings about these jokes. Those that were funny elicited more negative emotions from those watching than did those that were real, and vice versa.
Humor, however, is much more complex than the use of popular current popular culture examples. It is one of the most important facets of our communication system. It has evolved through human history and can be found in all cultures around the world. Humor in a variety of forms appears throughout the written language, plays, poems, songs, and conversation.
What makes a joke funny? Researchers speculate that many of the world’s most funny things are those that defies categorization. Some characteristics that make something funny are the inability to recognize the difference between what is not a laughing matter, an ability to produce and enjoy unusual mental states, and the ability to find something completely ridiculous but amusing at the same time. In other words, we are looking for something that is off-color and yet amusing.
A few elements define the genre of humor. The obvious ones are obvious inclusions of comedy or action, but there are also elements that are seemingly non-realistic, but have a positive effect on the mentality and mood of those who observe them. For example, certain comical acts, such as pulling a prank, are extremely funny when they are performed by an individual but are absurd when performed by another. This kind of discrepancy, known as paradoxical amuses, occurs often in everyday life, but rarely in literature, theater, or movies.
There are countless stories that share the truth of how seemingly ordinary objects or events can become extremely funny. People like to share the fact that their neighbor’s dog was found to be barking continuously or that a small child started to talk in a strange way. When one adds the factor of familiarity or habitual observation, the result can be quite funny things. Similarly, funny things do not happen everyday, but can be brought about by chance or coincidence.