Ring name(s) The Prototype
John Cena
Height 6 ft 1 in (186 cm)
Weight 248 lb (112 kg)
Born April 23, 1977
West Newbury, Massachusetts
Resides Tampa, Florida
Billed from West Newbury, Massachusetts
Trained by Ultimate Pro Wrestling
Ohio Valley Wrestling
Debut 2000
John Felix Anthony Cena, Jr. (born April 23, 1977 in West Newbury, Massachusetts), is an American professional wrestler, rap music artist and actor who currently wrestles on the RAW brand of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).
Contents [hide]
1 Career
1.1 Early career
1.2 World Wrestling Entertainment
1.2.1 2002-2003
1.2.2 2004
1.2.3 2005
1.2.4 2006
2 In Wrestling
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 Outside of wrestling
4.1 Music
4.2 Film
4.3 Fashion
4.4 Guest appearances
5 Personal information
6 Footnotes
7 References
8 External links
[edit]
Career
[edit]
Early career
Cena first started training to become a wrestler in 2000 at the California-based Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW) where he created the character, The Prototype. After UPW he was signed to a World Wrestling Entertainment developmental contract and assigned to "farm territory" Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW).
During his time in OVW, he also appeared on the UPN reality show Manhunt under the pseudonym "Big Tim Kingman", the "lead hunter" in a team "hunting" contestant with paint ball guns. The show was produced in association with WWE. It was later revealed that many of the scenes in the show were re-shot or staged to enhance the drama, contests were rigged to eliminate contestants, and other contestants read from scripts. As a result of the controversy, WWE has never referenced the show or Cena's part in it. [1][2][3][4]
[edit]
World Wrestling Entertainment
[edit]
2002-2003
Cena's first televised WWE match was in answer to an open challenge by Kurt Angle on June 27, 2002. Inspired by Vince McMahon's (kayfabe) speech to WWE's rising stars, exhorting them to show "ruthless aggression" to earn a place among the legends, Cena took advantage of the opportunity and almost beat Kurt Angle kicking out of the Angle Slam and enduring the Ankle Lock submission hold, but ultimately lost to a hard, amateur-style pin.
Cena then played the role of a typical underdog face in each match. After losing, along side Billy Kidman, in a tournament match for the WWE Tag Team Championships, Cena turned heel, blaming Kidman for the loss. Shortly after his heel turn, on a Halloween episode of SmackDown!, he performed a freestyle rap for Stephanie McMahon while wearing a Vanilla Ice costume prompting a gimmick change to a white rapper. At first, this gimmick got Cena heel heat from the fans, but his frequent comical "freestyles" about other wrestlers helped to gain him a following. One of Cena's signature symbols during this time was the classic WWF logo (without the "F") along with the slogan "Word Life".
Cena eventually had a long running feud with Brock Lesnar over the WWE Championship. During the feud he unveiled a new signature finishing maneuver, the F-U, as a counterpart to Lesnar's similar F-5 (the name being derived from a combination of "F-5" and the shorthand for "**** You")[citation needed]. The two eventually joined forces when Lesnar also turned heel and together feuded with Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero before Cena turned face by betraying Lesnar and feuding with him again. Cena established his signature "you can't see me" catch phrase and hand gesture during this time.
[edit]
2004
Cena as the U.S. Champion with his customized "Spinner" U.S. Title Belt.During 2004 Cena's popularity began to increase. At the start of the year, he participated in the annual January Royal Rumble, lasting up to the final 6 before being eliminated by Big Show. After the elimination Cena and Big Show began a feud, leading to Cena winning the United States Championship from Show in a match at March's WrestleMania XX. Cena claimed the title, his first in WWE, by distracting the ref and using his signature brass knuckles on Big Show before hitting him with the F-U. In July he was stripped of the title by SmackDown! General Manager Kurt Angle, whom he had a contentious relationship with, after "attacking" him.
He won the title back at October's No Mercy after winning the final match of a Best-of-5 series with Booker T. This second reign was short-lived, however, as he lost the title to the debuting Carlito in the very next weeks SmackDown!.
This started a feud with Carlito, during which Cena was (kayfabe) attacked in a Boston nightclub by Carlito's bodyguard, Jesús, who stabbed him in the kidney, keeping him out of action for a month. In truth, this event was set up to allow Cena time off to film The Marine. Upon his return, Cena exacted revenge on Carlito in a SmackDown! match, winning back the U.S. title. During this reign he debuted his custom made spinner style title belt.
[edit]
2005
At the 2005 Royal Rumble, Cena and Batista went over the top rope at the same time to end the match, prompting Vince McMahon to demand the match be restarted and go into "sudden death".
With Batista choosing to vie for the (RAW exclusive) World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 21, SmackDown! held a tournament to determine #1 contendership for the their WWE Championship. In the finals Cena pinned Kurt Angle to win the WrestleMania title shot.
In the following weeks, Cena feuded with champion John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) and his Cabinet, including losing his United States Championship to Cabinet member Orlando Jordan, who (with JBL) proceeded to "blow up" the custom spinner belt. It was during this feud that Cena first began referring to his fans as "Chain Gang Soldiers" (often shorted to just "Chain Gang").
On April 3, at WrestleMania 21, Cena defeated JBL to win the WWE Championship. As part of the storyline, he then had a custom WWE Championship belt made similar to his custom U.S. title belt, featuring a spinner-type WWE logo plate. Meanwhile, JBL took the original belt and claimed he was still the WWE Champion.
Cena after winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21.Cena successfully defended his title against JBL in a bloody "I Quit" Match at Judgment Day in May when he forced JBL to quit by cornering him against a glass pane, and threatening to hit him with a tractor trailer's exhaust pipe. In the process Cena was able to reclaim the original title belt, though he continued to carry his version.
On the June 6th episode of RAW, John Cena became the first wrestler drafted in the annual draft lottery, when Eric Bischoff drafted him from SmackDown! over to RAW. Upon arriving on RAW, Cena immediately entered a program with Chris Jericho and Christian, two wrestlers with strong cult followings. Taking on these two seemingly began a trend of fan backlash against Cena. He went on to defeat Christian and Jericho in a Triple Threat match at the June Vengeance event by knocking Jericho out of the ring and pinning Christian.
During this feud Cena made (kayfabe) enemies with RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff with Bischoff vowing to make Cena's stint on RAW difficult and choosing Chris Jericho to take Cena's title from him.
On August 22, Cena beat Jericho again, this time in a "You're Fired" match for the WWE Championship - despite General Manager Bischoff giving Cena a low-blow and handing Jericho a pair of brass knuckles. After the match, with Jericho now off of RAW due to his loss, Kurt Angle came to the ring and attacked Cena, with Bischoff revealing that Angle was his new "hand picked" number one contender for Cena's world title. Despite Angle's best attempts to attain heel heat, the fans continued to cheer him and boo Cena.
After several weeks of feuding, Angle and Cena main evented September's Unforgiven, where Cena lost to Angle by disqualification after hitting him with the WWE title belt, meaning Cena would still be champion (titles don't change hands on a disqualification or count out). They met again at November's Survivor Series, with Cena picking up the win this time.
When Vince McMahon returned to RAW to (kayfabe) put Bischoff on trial in December, Cena made his opinion of Bischoff known and eventually helped Vince McMahon remove Bischoff from the show by delivering the F-U to the former RAW GM, effectively ending the hostilities he had with Bischoff.
[edit]
2006
Cena successfully defended his WWE Championship in an Elimination Chamber at the January New Years Revolution to kick off 2006, to the dismay of many in attendance. However, after the match, Vince McMahon announced that Cena was going to have to defend the WWE Championship again, this time against Edge, who was cashing in his previously earned Money in the Bank title shot. Edge delivered two spears to a tired Cena, pinning him in short order to win the WWE Championship. Cena's championship reign ended at 280 days, matching that of previous champion JBL.
Three weeks, to the day, after losing the title Cena defeated Edge at the Royal Rumble to regain the WWE Championship. During this time WWE announcers, most notably Jim Ross, were forced to acknowledge the negative reactions Cena was getting and began to refer to him as a "controversial champion" saying that he was alienating some fans with his "unorthodox style".
Cena after his victory over Triple H at WrestleMania 22.Jerry Lawler would often suggest that Cena was too young, edgy and original for the older audience to appreciate. Cena continued to polarize crowds leading up to WrestleMania 22, during which he was soundly jeered during his main event win over Triple H. Despite Triple H's best attempts to get heat, the crowd continued to favor him over Cena. Both Cena and Vince McMahon were reported as being (legitly) upset by fans' negativity, though Cena stated that the fans "obviously had a choice in deciding whom they wanted to root for".
The crowd began to cheer Cena once again after April's Backlash, most notably when he began to side with the popular Shawn Michaels in matches against the Spirit Squad. After Cena stopped taking part in this angle and moved on to working against Rob Van Dam there was once again a notable mixture of cheers and boos in most every arena visited, with some being more pro-Cena and some more against him.
On the May 22nd edition of RAW, Rob Van Dam informed Cena that he intended to cash in the Money in the Bank title match contract he won at WrestleMania at the upcoming Extreme Championship Wrestling One Night Stand pay-per-view event. The event saw Cena get his most negative reaction yet from the very pro-ECW crowd, including profanity-laced chants and anti-Cena signs. Cena lost the title at the event when Edge appeared from under the ring and speared Cena through a table, setting him up for Van Dam's Five Star Frog Splash. With two referees "knocked out" (the first by Cena, the second by Edge) Paul Heyman ran down the entrance aisle and counted the three count, giving Van Dam the win and his first world title. On the next nights RAW Paul Heyman announced that the title change was official, as the match was under "Extreme rules".
When Edge won the title from Van Dam in a Triple Threat match (also involving Cena) it re-ignited the feud between Edge and Cena. The opening stages of the feud saw Edge taking constant shortcuts in order to keep his title (losing by disqualification).
[edit]
In Wrestling
Cena delivering the F-U to Kurt Angle.Finishing and signature moves
F-U (Standing fireman's carry takeover or fireman's carry powerslam)
STF-U (Stepover toehold sleeper)
Five Knuckle Shuffle (Fist drop with theatrics)
Throwback (Running necksnap)
Freestyle / Protoplex (Swinging fisherman suplex)
Protobomb / Killswitch (Spin-out powerbomb)
Flying shoulder block
Repeating clotheslines
Who wants to read about the great things cena can do unlike edge!?
u got that off of wikipedia.
Reply:Wow...thats a lot of stuff, did you type all of that? Gosh!!!! I cant even read all of it! Looks good, i guess!
Reply:he could probably write a much shorter question as well.
Reply:woooooooooooooooooooooooooow!!!! lol but i like it and he is hot to!
Reply:ah............... wow
Reply:and what was the question?
Reply:Good stuff U did and anyways cena %26gt; Edge and Why didnt u just link us to wikipedia instead of wasting all that stuff
Reply:wow your a bigger fan than me f*ck edge u forgot to put that in there
Reply:you have wasted so much space on nothing. wrestling should be banned
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Is shyness really a lack of confidence?
Entertainers . . .
Ann Margaret Winner of five Golden Globe Awards and veteran of forty-two films that span more than thirty years, Ann Margaret was also shy as a child. (Hint - scroll down past the advertisements to see the article.) http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.g...
Bob Dylan Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941, this shy youth went on to become one of the greatest folk singers and composers of his time. (Hint - scroll down past the advertisements to see the article.) http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/3716...
Brad Pitt Known for his portrayal of exciting energetic characters on the screen, Brad Pitt is said to be shy and protective in his personal life. http://www.femail.com.au/ma_bradpitt.htm
Carrie Underwood She "isn't shy about her shyness." That's what they're saying about Carrie Underwood, the fourth winner of the American Idol television series. Her first album debuted in the number one position on Billboard's chart. Not bad for this shy, but talented, young Oklahoma woman! http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Underwood...
Cathy Rigby Cathy Rigby turned to gymnastics as a way to help her overcome severe shyness. Eight gold medals later, she found herself working as a sports commentator for ABC and starring in Peter Pan on Broadway. Not bad for a shy girl! http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers/...
Cher Bono Shy and introverted earlier in her career, Cher found her style with the help of then husband, Sonny Bono, and blossomed into a star in her own right. http://www.cherscholar.com/IGUB.htm
Courteney Cox Arquette Shy as a young girl and frequently picked on, Courteney Cox Arquette felt like an outsider growing up, but that didn't stop her from joining us in living rooms around the country in her role as Monica Geller on Friends. http://groups.msn.com/ULTIMATEFRIENDS/ne...
David Bowie Even rock stars can be shy. Check out David Bowie. http://www.algonet.se/~bassman/articles/...
David Letterman Like many of his fellow shy talk show hosts, David Letterman doesn't let his self-proclaimed "painful shyness" get in the way of interviewing his guests or entertaining his audiences. http://users.abac.com/ksitterley/walters...
Diane Schuur Jazz fans will know this name. Blinded as a child when too much oxygen in her incubator damaged her optic nerve, this once shy talent didn't let a little thing like that stop her and has gone on to be one of our great female jazz vocalists. http://www.corporateartists.com/dianesch...
Don Rickles Don Rickles imitated his father's style of kidding people about themselves and found that, like his father, he could make friends by making people laugh. http://www.thehockeypuck.com/bio.html
Donny Osmond In the public eye from the time he was small, the pressure of performing and being constantly judged eventually caught up with Donny in the form of Social Phobia. With the help of therapy Donny learned to "play with his fear instead of running from it." http://panicdisorder.about.com/gi/dynami...
Erin Brockovitch Like the Julia Robert's, who played Erin in the film that made Erin's name a household word, Erin struggled with shyness as a child. But that didn't stop Erin from setting a quarter billion dollar law suit dealing with exposure to toxic levels of Chromium 6 into motion. http://www.kkbooks.com/product103.html
Ella Fitzgerald Shy offstage, this Jazz legend was surprised to find that onstage she had no fear. http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/index.php?...
Elvis Presley Music was a form a self-expression for this talented shy young man who lost his footing to fame. http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/april9...
Garrison Keillor This multifaceted multitalented man brought us Lake Wobegon, made "A Prairie Home Companion" a household term and taught us to laugh at the shyness that he and so many of us have shared. http://www.mindspring.com/~celestia/keil...
Gene Hackman Gene Hackman's film credits include the likes of Bonny And Clyde, The French Connection, Unforgiven, Mississippi Burning and Enemy of the State in spite of a childhood shyness that has carried forward somewhat into adulthood. http://www.biography.com/tv/listings/hac...
George Harrison Often referred to as the "Quiet Beatle," this shy superstar helped shape the face of modern music. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Har...
Gloria Estefan It helps to have a mentor. Husband and group leader, Emilio Estefan, is said to have helped a relatively shy Gloria come out of her shell to become the dynamic entertainer she is today. http://www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/ref...
Harrison Ford Sexy and shy in one package? Sure, check out Oscar nominee Harrison Ford, who didn't let shyness get in the way of his pursuit of a successful acting career. http://www.thespiannet.com/actors/F/ford...
Henry Fonda It's hard to believe this talented actor from Nebraska was painfully shy. http://www.filmnebraska.org/nebraskans_f...
Ingrid Bergman This talented actress and only child was afraid of her classmates in school. Sound familiar? But what a talent http://www.talentdevelop.com/introversio...
Jim Carrey Yes, Jim Carrey---he too was a shy quiet child who and didn't have many friends until he showed his comedic talents. http://www.geocities.com/jimcarreyfanjt/...
Joan Rivers Probably best know for her work as a guest host pinch-hitting for fellow shy person Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, Joan was said to have used jokes to cover up her shyness when she was younger. http://www.joanrivers.com/AllAboutJoan/d...
Johnny Carson Many a television watcher shared the dawn of a new day with this fellow shy late night talk show host who seemed anything but shy on the screen. http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/...
Julia Roberts Born in Smyrna, Georgia, this once shy young woman has become one of the most popular actresses in America. http://www.channel4000.com/sh/entertainm...
Kevin Costner Awarding winning actor in his adult life, Kevin's mother encouraged him to join the choir as a way to help him overcome shyness caused by frequent moves as a child. http://www.netkushi.com/hollywood/kevin_...
Louise Siversen Some of you baby-boomers may remember Louise from the television show The Prisoners or, perhaps, you saw her in one of her films. In any case, Louise is one of the many people who didn't let her shyness keep her from a career in show business. http://www.geocities.com/louise_siversen...
Lucille Ball Perceived as shy by teachers at the John Murray Anderson dramatic school and discouraged from pursuing a career in show business, Lucille Ball did not give up. The rest is history. http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc%26amp;id=180...
Mary Chapin Carpenter I was surprised to learn that his dynamo on stage is one of us shy people. But as Mary says, "when you're in that place where you're really into what you're doing-whether onstage, or by yourself at your desk, or wherever-there is a great sense of fulfillment. It's one of the few times that you know who you are." http://home.earthlink.net/~dlgillilan/li...
Mia Hamm Said to be the greatest all round women's soccer player, Mia, who holds the record for women's soccer goals, comes from a family of shy Hamms. But that didn't stop her from having a building dedicated in her name. http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Press...
Michael Feldman Who would have thought! Michael Feldman---shy? If you've ever heard his quick witted radio program, Whad'Ya Know? on NPR, you're probably as surprised as I was. http://www.current.org/people/peop722f.h...
Michelle Pfeiffer While she describes herself as shy, that didn't stop her from starring in starring in numerous successful movies. http://www.unreel.co.uk/features/feature...
Nancy Marchand Sent to acting school at age 10 to help her overcome her shyness, this Golden Globe winner and two time Emmy Award Nominee's career has spanned everything from soap operas and Mary Tyler Moore to the role of Livia Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos (1999-2000). http://www.biography.com/search/article....
Neil Armstrong His shyness and tendency toward deliberation was mistaken for arrogance by some of his fellow fliers, but he is best known for being the first man to set foot on the moon. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nat...
Nicole Kidman Like so many of us, Nicole Kidman describes herself as confident in some situations and shy in others. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/enterta...
Paul Potts I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from this fellow shy person, now that Paul has won the 2007 "Britain's Best Talent" competition for his moving operatic renditions judged by no less than Simon Cowell. Paul follows in the footsteps of another fellow shy singer judged by Cowell, Carrie Underwood, who has gone on to become an award winning singer in her own right following her win on American Idol. http://www.calendarlive.com/music/la-ca-...
Rene Russo Discovered at a Rolling Stones concert at age 16, this shy young woman went on to become a cover girl for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and to act in movies with the likes of Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mel Gibson and Kevin Kostner. http://www.aclasscelebs.com/rener/
Rene Russo Discovered at a Rolling Stones concert at age 16, this shy young woman went on to become a cover girl for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and to act in movies with the likes of Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mel Gibson and Kevin Kostner. http://www.aclasscelebs.com/rener/
Richard Gere Shy men take heart, Richard Gere is one of you, but that hasn't stopped him from establishing a successful acting career. http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/1...
Robert De Niro At the age of ten, Robert De Niro assumed his first stage role as the "cowardly" lion in The Wizard of Oz in an effort to help him overcome shyness. He now has dozens of movies to his credit. http://www.thespiannet.com/actors/D/deni...
Roy Rogers Roy Rogers and his horse trigger would never have warmed the heart of millions, if he'd given in to his shyness. http://www.royrogers.com/roy_rogers_bio....
Sally Field A woman with an illustrious television and film career, Sally Field is said to describe herself as having a crippling shyness into her early adulthood. http://www.swinginchicks.com/sally_field...
Segourny Weaver Being extremely shy as a child didn't stop Segourny Weaver from pursuing a successful acting career. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f...
Sir Alec Guinness The son of a baker, Sir Alec achieved his dream of being an actor whose talents ranged from Shakespeare to comedy and who was well known for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Ex...
Tom Cruise Heart throb of many, this illustrious actor struggled with both shyness and dyslexia as a child. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f...
Tom Hanks One of the greatest actors of our time, Tom's family moved frequently when he was child---making it harder for him to make friends. His involvement in theatre helped to ease his resulting shyness. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f...
Is shyness really a lack of confidence?
Dude, you could stand to type shorter questions...
But seriously no, shyness is not an indicator of a lack of confidence...
Shyness is a result of people not feeling comfortable in a certain environment or situation.
When all is said and done comfort is what it comes down to.
Put anyone in a situation when they feel in control and shyness goes out the window.
Reply:yes read book about confidence Report It
Reply:nope. i have all the confidence in the world i just don't like attention.
Reply:i honestly don't know ,i wish that i could understand why it is so hard to communicate with another person . rejection coldness and indifference is what stands between me and a potential friend
tooth fairy
Ann Margaret Winner of five Golden Globe Awards and veteran of forty-two films that span more than thirty years, Ann Margaret was also shy as a child. (Hint - scroll down past the advertisements to see the article.) http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.g...
Bob Dylan Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941, this shy youth went on to become one of the greatest folk singers and composers of his time. (Hint - scroll down past the advertisements to see the article.) http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/3716...
Brad Pitt Known for his portrayal of exciting energetic characters on the screen, Brad Pitt is said to be shy and protective in his personal life. http://www.femail.com.au/ma_bradpitt.htm
Carrie Underwood She "isn't shy about her shyness." That's what they're saying about Carrie Underwood, the fourth winner of the American Idol television series. Her first album debuted in the number one position on Billboard's chart. Not bad for this shy, but talented, young Oklahoma woman! http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Underwood...
Cathy Rigby Cathy Rigby turned to gymnastics as a way to help her overcome severe shyness. Eight gold medals later, she found herself working as a sports commentator for ABC and starring in Peter Pan on Broadway. Not bad for a shy girl! http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers/...
Cher Bono Shy and introverted earlier in her career, Cher found her style with the help of then husband, Sonny Bono, and blossomed into a star in her own right. http://www.cherscholar.com/IGUB.htm
Courteney Cox Arquette Shy as a young girl and frequently picked on, Courteney Cox Arquette felt like an outsider growing up, but that didn't stop her from joining us in living rooms around the country in her role as Monica Geller on Friends. http://groups.msn.com/ULTIMATEFRIENDS/ne...
David Bowie Even rock stars can be shy. Check out David Bowie. http://www.algonet.se/~bassman/articles/...
David Letterman Like many of his fellow shy talk show hosts, David Letterman doesn't let his self-proclaimed "painful shyness" get in the way of interviewing his guests or entertaining his audiences. http://users.abac.com/ksitterley/walters...
Diane Schuur Jazz fans will know this name. Blinded as a child when too much oxygen in her incubator damaged her optic nerve, this once shy talent didn't let a little thing like that stop her and has gone on to be one of our great female jazz vocalists. http://www.corporateartists.com/dianesch...
Don Rickles Don Rickles imitated his father's style of kidding people about themselves and found that, like his father, he could make friends by making people laugh. http://www.thehockeypuck.com/bio.html
Donny Osmond In the public eye from the time he was small, the pressure of performing and being constantly judged eventually caught up with Donny in the form of Social Phobia. With the help of therapy Donny learned to "play with his fear instead of running from it." http://panicdisorder.about.com/gi/dynami...
Erin Brockovitch Like the Julia Robert's, who played Erin in the film that made Erin's name a household word, Erin struggled with shyness as a child. But that didn't stop Erin from setting a quarter billion dollar law suit dealing with exposure to toxic levels of Chromium 6 into motion. http://www.kkbooks.com/product103.html
Ella Fitzgerald Shy offstage, this Jazz legend was surprised to find that onstage she had no fear. http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/index.php?...
Elvis Presley Music was a form a self-expression for this talented shy young man who lost his footing to fame. http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/april9...
Garrison Keillor This multifaceted multitalented man brought us Lake Wobegon, made "A Prairie Home Companion" a household term and taught us to laugh at the shyness that he and so many of us have shared. http://www.mindspring.com/~celestia/keil...
Gene Hackman Gene Hackman's film credits include the likes of Bonny And Clyde, The French Connection, Unforgiven, Mississippi Burning and Enemy of the State in spite of a childhood shyness that has carried forward somewhat into adulthood. http://www.biography.com/tv/listings/hac...
George Harrison Often referred to as the "Quiet Beatle," this shy superstar helped shape the face of modern music. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Har...
Gloria Estefan It helps to have a mentor. Husband and group leader, Emilio Estefan, is said to have helped a relatively shy Gloria come out of her shell to become the dynamic entertainer she is today. http://www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/ref...
Harrison Ford Sexy and shy in one package? Sure, check out Oscar nominee Harrison Ford, who didn't let shyness get in the way of his pursuit of a successful acting career. http://www.thespiannet.com/actors/F/ford...
Henry Fonda It's hard to believe this talented actor from Nebraska was painfully shy. http://www.filmnebraska.org/nebraskans_f...
Ingrid Bergman This talented actress and only child was afraid of her classmates in school. Sound familiar? But what a talent http://www.talentdevelop.com/introversio...
Jim Carrey Yes, Jim Carrey---he too was a shy quiet child who and didn't have many friends until he showed his comedic talents. http://www.geocities.com/jimcarreyfanjt/...
Joan Rivers Probably best know for her work as a guest host pinch-hitting for fellow shy person Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, Joan was said to have used jokes to cover up her shyness when she was younger. http://www.joanrivers.com/AllAboutJoan/d...
Johnny Carson Many a television watcher shared the dawn of a new day with this fellow shy late night talk show host who seemed anything but shy on the screen. http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/...
Julia Roberts Born in Smyrna, Georgia, this once shy young woman has become one of the most popular actresses in America. http://www.channel4000.com/sh/entertainm...
Kevin Costner Awarding winning actor in his adult life, Kevin's mother encouraged him to join the choir as a way to help him overcome shyness caused by frequent moves as a child. http://www.netkushi.com/hollywood/kevin_...
Louise Siversen Some of you baby-boomers may remember Louise from the television show The Prisoners or, perhaps, you saw her in one of her films. In any case, Louise is one of the many people who didn't let her shyness keep her from a career in show business. http://www.geocities.com/louise_siversen...
Lucille Ball Perceived as shy by teachers at the John Murray Anderson dramatic school and discouraged from pursuing a career in show business, Lucille Ball did not give up. The rest is history. http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc%26amp;id=180...
Mary Chapin Carpenter I was surprised to learn that his dynamo on stage is one of us shy people. But as Mary says, "when you're in that place where you're really into what you're doing-whether onstage, or by yourself at your desk, or wherever-there is a great sense of fulfillment. It's one of the few times that you know who you are." http://home.earthlink.net/~dlgillilan/li...
Mia Hamm Said to be the greatest all round women's soccer player, Mia, who holds the record for women's soccer goals, comes from a family of shy Hamms. But that didn't stop her from having a building dedicated in her name. http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Press...
Michael Feldman Who would have thought! Michael Feldman---shy? If you've ever heard his quick witted radio program, Whad'Ya Know? on NPR, you're probably as surprised as I was. http://www.current.org/people/peop722f.h...
Michelle Pfeiffer While she describes herself as shy, that didn't stop her from starring in starring in numerous successful movies. http://www.unreel.co.uk/features/feature...
Nancy Marchand Sent to acting school at age 10 to help her overcome her shyness, this Golden Globe winner and two time Emmy Award Nominee's career has spanned everything from soap operas and Mary Tyler Moore to the role of Livia Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos (1999-2000). http://www.biography.com/search/article....
Neil Armstrong His shyness and tendency toward deliberation was mistaken for arrogance by some of his fellow fliers, but he is best known for being the first man to set foot on the moon. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nat...
Nicole Kidman Like so many of us, Nicole Kidman describes herself as confident in some situations and shy in others. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/enterta...
Paul Potts I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from this fellow shy person, now that Paul has won the 2007 "Britain's Best Talent" competition for his moving operatic renditions judged by no less than Simon Cowell. Paul follows in the footsteps of another fellow shy singer judged by Cowell, Carrie Underwood, who has gone on to become an award winning singer in her own right following her win on American Idol. http://www.calendarlive.com/music/la-ca-...
Rene Russo Discovered at a Rolling Stones concert at age 16, this shy young woman went on to become a cover girl for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and to act in movies with the likes of Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mel Gibson and Kevin Kostner. http://www.aclasscelebs.com/rener/
Rene Russo Discovered at a Rolling Stones concert at age 16, this shy young woman went on to become a cover girl for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and to act in movies with the likes of Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Mel Gibson and Kevin Kostner. http://www.aclasscelebs.com/rener/
Richard Gere Shy men take heart, Richard Gere is one of you, but that hasn't stopped him from establishing a successful acting career. http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/1...
Robert De Niro At the age of ten, Robert De Niro assumed his first stage role as the "cowardly" lion in The Wizard of Oz in an effort to help him overcome shyness. He now has dozens of movies to his credit. http://www.thespiannet.com/actors/D/deni...
Roy Rogers Roy Rogers and his horse trigger would never have warmed the heart of millions, if he'd given in to his shyness. http://www.royrogers.com/roy_rogers_bio....
Sally Field A woman with an illustrious television and film career, Sally Field is said to describe herself as having a crippling shyness into her early adulthood. http://www.swinginchicks.com/sally_field...
Segourny Weaver Being extremely shy as a child didn't stop Segourny Weaver from pursuing a successful acting career. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f...
Sir Alec Guinness The son of a baker, Sir Alec achieved his dream of being an actor whose talents ranged from Shakespeare to comedy and who was well known for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Ex...
Tom Cruise Heart throb of many, this illustrious actor struggled with both shyness and dyslexia as a child. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f...
Tom Hanks One of the greatest actors of our time, Tom's family moved frequently when he was child---making it harder for him to make friends. His involvement in theatre helped to ease his resulting shyness. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/f...
Is shyness really a lack of confidence?
Dude, you could stand to type shorter questions...
But seriously no, shyness is not an indicator of a lack of confidence...
Shyness is a result of people not feeling comfortable in a certain environment or situation.
When all is said and done comfort is what it comes down to.
Put anyone in a situation when they feel in control and shyness goes out the window.
Reply:yes read book about confidence Report It
Reply:nope. i have all the confidence in the world i just don't like attention.
Reply:i honestly don't know ,i wish that i could understand why it is so hard to communicate with another person . rejection coldness and indifference is what stands between me and a potential friend
tooth fairy
Interacting with the audience during an informative speech?
I'm a young student and this is my first time to compose and deliver a speech for my English subject..I was wondering if it is okay to interact with the audience(my classmates and teacher for the subject). The speech is about teens(youth), the things that keeps them(us) from the right way, why these happens and how to avoid or stop it. I'd be pretending to be a doctor of psychology and the audience, I'd ask them to pretend as the parents. So um the audience is basically composed of parents..................
NOW my questions are:
Is it legal for an informative speech to be interactive to the audience? Can I ask them questions and ask for answers?
Is it alright to say "right?" in a manner of inquiring if they agree.
Asking for example: ....since they are parents, well I'd already know they have kids, so I might be asking how many and maybe how old their kids are. Also, I could be asking them if they have one of the problems that I've just delivered and what do to make things right
Interacting with the audience during an informative speech?
Not everyone likes to be given a list of links to look at, (No matter how relevant they are). If you would like me to delete the answer, then contact me and I will, no hard feelings.
I would have thought that an informative speech, is just that, it informs, what you are proposing is an interactive speech whereby you engage in social discourse with the audience.
Don't forget the danger of giving someone else the stage, they steal the show.
I've found some links that might be useful.
Presentation Tips for Public Speaking
SpeechTips.com Your free guide to speech writing and public speaking for eulogies, graduations, best man, father of the bride and any other public speaking engagement.
http://www.speechtips.com/index.html
http://www.public-speaking.org/public-sp...
http://www.aresearchguide.com/3tips.html
http://www.speech-topics-help.com/
http://www.goodspeechtopics.com/
http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/pers...
NOW my questions are:
Is it legal for an informative speech to be interactive to the audience? Can I ask them questions and ask for answers?
Is it alright to say "right?" in a manner of inquiring if they agree.
Asking for example: ....since they are parents, well I'd already know they have kids, so I might be asking how many and maybe how old their kids are. Also, I could be asking them if they have one of the problems that I've just delivered and what do to make things right
Interacting with the audience during an informative speech?
Not everyone likes to be given a list of links to look at, (No matter how relevant they are). If you would like me to delete the answer, then contact me and I will, no hard feelings.
I would have thought that an informative speech, is just that, it informs, what you are proposing is an interactive speech whereby you engage in social discourse with the audience.
Don't forget the danger of giving someone else the stage, they steal the show.
I've found some links that might be useful.
Presentation Tips for Public Speaking
SpeechTips.com Your free guide to speech writing and public speaking for eulogies, graduations, best man, father of the bride and any other public speaking engagement.
http://www.speechtips.com/index.html
http://www.public-speaking.org/public-sp...
http://www.aresearchguide.com/3tips.html
http://www.speech-topics-help.com/
http://www.goodspeechtopics.com/
http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/pers...
A realistic examination of gangster rap?
Gangster rap music -
I like gangster rap music and still do but I see it as a form of brainwashing currently and think that what people have take into account that it's still a majority white audience who lives in the suburbs - young, white people who are into rebelling against their parents who buy this stuff and think it's just a kick , it's fun anotherwords . It's just a way of expressing their anti-authoritarianism . However these kids never lived in the ghetto , never experienced real authoritarianism and I feel the music really losses its purpose in that sense .
On the other hand black kids listen and think " Oh , that's what it means to be black . That's how you make money . That's how you become rich and famous and get on TV , get music videos and live in mansion . And that's how you either get the boys or the girls . " The girls think they have to be half-naked and spinning around like they're on meth in order to get any attention . It really corrupts people and I think it adds to some serious sociological problems , like the high out-of-wedlock birth rate because of this hypersexual imagery that then the kids adapt to some kind of reality . I mean , it's inauthentic . It's not in keeping with great black traditions of struggle and excellence , from Willie Mays to Aretha Franklin but even in terms of academics , going back to people like Charles Drew or Ben Carson who is a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University. That stuff all of a sudden, is pushed aside . That's treated as , " You're a nerd , you're acting white . " By the black community , if you try to be excellent and rise yourself up realistically and I find it absurd .
Anyone agree ?
A realistic examination of gangster rap?
how can you not? sometimes it's like that, but sometimes parents are involved enough in their kids lives, and no matter what they're listening to, they should have good direction regardless of the outside influences
Reply:yeah you got a point but what if white people actually do like rap? like eminem you can't say all this **** about him because he actually liked it and had passion for it. look it's not always the black people that know how this actually feels. i'm white but i'm also part mexican but i grew up around people just like this i've seen it all and i didn't grow up in suburbia. i love rap i don't listen to it to rebel against my parents that's stupid. so that's the biggest stereotype ever and i know i don't speak for all white people but i love rap and that's the truth. people who just try to get famous off of it are dumb lookin to get rich quick. so don't accuse all of us for not actually liking it when there are some who really do. and it's also not inauthentic. other than that most of what you said is true
Reply:^^^^^^^ Nuff said
Well spoken
Reply:yes, I agree and applaud you for seeing the truth of it. there are going to be many that do not like your question and you may get reported, but that's part of speaking the truth, you'll make those that do not like to hear it very angry
Reply:you aint ever been to the ghetto! man theres ****** and then theres black people.. ****** listen to rap.. black people generally dont.. ****** slang, bang, claim gangs.. but youre wrong on the part that raps inauthentic.. people do get killed for throwing gang signs in the wrong hoods.. people do get robbed in broad day light.. crack heads do hang around asking for hand outs.. drug dealers do ride some NICE cars.. a lot of ****** do end up dead or in jail before they twenty one.. the white kids listening it to in suburbia is a completely different issue you right about that but i think what influences most is how popular ebonics have gotten.. its actually COOL to sound illiterate.. well thas coo with me
I like gangster rap music and still do but I see it as a form of brainwashing currently and think that what people have take into account that it's still a majority white audience who lives in the suburbs - young, white people who are into rebelling against their parents who buy this stuff and think it's just a kick , it's fun anotherwords . It's just a way of expressing their anti-authoritarianism . However these kids never lived in the ghetto , never experienced real authoritarianism and I feel the music really losses its purpose in that sense .
On the other hand black kids listen and think " Oh , that's what it means to be black . That's how you make money . That's how you become rich and famous and get on TV , get music videos and live in mansion . And that's how you either get the boys or the girls . " The girls think they have to be half-naked and spinning around like they're on meth in order to get any attention . It really corrupts people and I think it adds to some serious sociological problems , like the high out-of-wedlock birth rate because of this hypersexual imagery that then the kids adapt to some kind of reality . I mean , it's inauthentic . It's not in keeping with great black traditions of struggle and excellence , from Willie Mays to Aretha Franklin but even in terms of academics , going back to people like Charles Drew or Ben Carson who is a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University. That stuff all of a sudden, is pushed aside . That's treated as , " You're a nerd , you're acting white . " By the black community , if you try to be excellent and rise yourself up realistically and I find it absurd .
Anyone agree ?
A realistic examination of gangster rap?
how can you not? sometimes it's like that, but sometimes parents are involved enough in their kids lives, and no matter what they're listening to, they should have good direction regardless of the outside influences
Reply:yeah you got a point but what if white people actually do like rap? like eminem you can't say all this **** about him because he actually liked it and had passion for it. look it's not always the black people that know how this actually feels. i'm white but i'm also part mexican but i grew up around people just like this i've seen it all and i didn't grow up in suburbia. i love rap i don't listen to it to rebel against my parents that's stupid. so that's the biggest stereotype ever and i know i don't speak for all white people but i love rap and that's the truth. people who just try to get famous off of it are dumb lookin to get rich quick. so don't accuse all of us for not actually liking it when there are some who really do. and it's also not inauthentic. other than that most of what you said is true
Reply:^^^^^^^ Nuff said
Well spoken
Reply:yes, I agree and applaud you for seeing the truth of it. there are going to be many that do not like your question and you may get reported, but that's part of speaking the truth, you'll make those that do not like to hear it very angry
Reply:you aint ever been to the ghetto! man theres ****** and then theres black people.. ****** listen to rap.. black people generally dont.. ****** slang, bang, claim gangs.. but youre wrong on the part that raps inauthentic.. people do get killed for throwing gang signs in the wrong hoods.. people do get robbed in broad day light.. crack heads do hang around asking for hand outs.. drug dealers do ride some NICE cars.. a lot of ****** do end up dead or in jail before they twenty one.. the white kids listening it to in suburbia is a completely different issue you right about that but i think what influences most is how popular ebonics have gotten.. its actually COOL to sound illiterate.. well thas coo with me
Photoelectric effect demo?
Does anyone have any ideas about how to present the photoelctric effect to a younger (middle school age-ish) audience? I'm part of a scientific demonstration group at my college, and we have a quantum mechanics show that we perform for anyone from elementary schoolers to adults and teachers. I'm currently using a zinc plate and UV wave generator, which generally makes the younger kids' eyes glaze over.
Photoelectric effect demo?
Just show them how an ordinary street lamp works
Photoelectric effect demo?
Just show them how an ordinary street lamp works
Age difference in relationships poll ...?
still exploring this ... or at least the views people have about it. ok, for the sake of arguement, let me make these two points absolutely clear ... I are talking about adults (18 and over ... not interested in immature woman my age or younger ... but by 18 your should no longer be a child) and serious, long term relationships (not one night stands or vacation romances, sugar daddies, etc/)
my gut feeling is that younger girls (majority of YA audience in this catagory??) are much more likely to automatically think this is creepy. I admit that when I was 18 everybody over 21 was "old" and I did not generally socialize with that group or really differentiate between 30 and 50 crowd. older than me was was just old, period. with the benefit of hindsight, there is not very reasonable. I am out to test this hypothesis.
what is your age, sex, and how do you feel about an age gap specifically between 18-25 yo girl and a guy in early 30's?
Age difference in relationships poll ...?
18 female i think its normal but when u get like 14 yr old dating 17+ year olds i thinks it wrong heres my age age bands
14-15
15-16
16-18
17-19
18-30
21-35
25-40
30-to any age older they want
Reply:26/f/ pacific islander. Age is nothing but a number.
Reply:Well, it's hard to decide. It really depends on the people. My mom was 19 when she got married and my dad was 30. They've been married for almost 21 years. Right now, I'm 18 and my boyfriend is 22, though we've only been together 7 months. I know of a lot of couples that have a huge age difference and they've worked out fine. It all depends on the people and their maturity level.
Reply:dude!!!
are you not getting the answer you want because you keep asking the same question.
age has no matter!
just how you feel about that patricular person
love has no limits!
Reply:24 male. I think the best gap is between 2 years older to 3 years younger. I think that when you break a gap of 5 years or more you belong to another generation and increases the possibility of conflict in concepts
tooth ache
my gut feeling is that younger girls (majority of YA audience in this catagory??) are much more likely to automatically think this is creepy. I admit that when I was 18 everybody over 21 was "old" and I did not generally socialize with that group or really differentiate between 30 and 50 crowd. older than me was was just old, period. with the benefit of hindsight, there is not very reasonable. I am out to test this hypothesis.
what is your age, sex, and how do you feel about an age gap specifically between 18-25 yo girl and a guy in early 30's?
Age difference in relationships poll ...?
18 female i think its normal but when u get like 14 yr old dating 17+ year olds i thinks it wrong heres my age age bands
14-15
15-16
16-18
17-19
18-30
21-35
25-40
30-to any age older they want
Reply:26/f/ pacific islander. Age is nothing but a number.
Reply:Well, it's hard to decide. It really depends on the people. My mom was 19 when she got married and my dad was 30. They've been married for almost 21 years. Right now, I'm 18 and my boyfriend is 22, though we've only been together 7 months. I know of a lot of couples that have a huge age difference and they've worked out fine. It all depends on the people and their maturity level.
Reply:dude!!!
are you not getting the answer you want because you keep asking the same question.
age has no matter!
just how you feel about that patricular person
love has no limits!
Reply:24 male. I think the best gap is between 2 years older to 3 years younger. I think that when you break a gap of 5 years or more you belong to another generation and increases the possibility of conflict in concepts
tooth ache
What is Aardman Animations target audience?
I need some peoples opinions on who Aardmans target audience is.
Obviously it is for younger kids, but you would say older kids and adults because of the humour they use etc?
Thanks :]
What is Aardman Animations target audience?
Depends on the film.
The Wallace and Grommit series and the feature length "Chicken Run" were aimed at families, with simple plots and some jokes aimed at adult viewers.
The ones with the talking animals (forget the name of the two films) were aimed at a much older audience, with some subtle sexual references included.
Reply:Aardman has appeal across the board; the claymation appeals to a younger audience but often the content is more adult-oriented.
Obviously it is for younger kids, but you would say older kids and adults because of the humour they use etc?
Thanks :]
What is Aardman Animations target audience?
Depends on the film.
The Wallace and Grommit series and the feature length "Chicken Run" were aimed at families, with simple plots and some jokes aimed at adult viewers.
The ones with the talking animals (forget the name of the two films) were aimed at a much older audience, with some subtle sexual references included.
Reply:Aardman has appeal across the board; the claymation appeals to a younger audience but often the content is more adult-oriented.
Doe this make sense so far...im not happy with the audience bit!?
Audience
I would suggest the audience for my piece of original writing to be young children, aged around twelve or thirteen years old. This is because the story is written in simple English vocabulary, with no difficult complex sentences. This is why it appeals to children that find reading difficult because the lexis is simple and also the story line is easy to follow. Having an uncomplicated story line would keep those children who don’t like reading intrigued because is not complicated.
Doe this make sense so far...im not happy with the audience bit!?
This piece of original writing is aimed at young children, of approximately twelve or thirteen years of age. The story is written in simple English vocabulary, without complex sentences. It will appeal to children who find reading difficult, or don't like to read, because the lexis is simple and the story line is easy to follow.
Reply:Have you read any Harry Potter? These are books much favoured by the age group you mention and yet they could hardly be described as simple and uncomplicated. Don't categorise all children as unable to understand complex plots and characters. Of course avoid language that is too 'highbrow' but don't talk down to your readers.
Reply:I would suggest:
My writing is aimed at young people aged between thirteen and fourteen years of age. The story is written in a language which they can understand and relate to. It is uncomplicated and yet intriguing, guaranteed to keep even the the reluctant reader turning the pages.
I would keep out words like simple and easy because some teenagers may find it condescending. Also they don't like being called children, the politically correct term is young people! lol The secret is to keep them on your side with your description.
I would suggest the audience for my piece of original writing to be young children, aged around twelve or thirteen years old. This is because the story is written in simple English vocabulary, with no difficult complex sentences. This is why it appeals to children that find reading difficult because the lexis is simple and also the story line is easy to follow. Having an uncomplicated story line would keep those children who don’t like reading intrigued because is not complicated.
Doe this make sense so far...im not happy with the audience bit!?
This piece of original writing is aimed at young children, of approximately twelve or thirteen years of age. The story is written in simple English vocabulary, without complex sentences. It will appeal to children who find reading difficult, or don't like to read, because the lexis is simple and the story line is easy to follow.
Reply:Have you read any Harry Potter? These are books much favoured by the age group you mention and yet they could hardly be described as simple and uncomplicated. Don't categorise all children as unable to understand complex plots and characters. Of course avoid language that is too 'highbrow' but don't talk down to your readers.
Reply:I would suggest:
My writing is aimed at young people aged between thirteen and fourteen years of age. The story is written in a language which they can understand and relate to. It is uncomplicated and yet intriguing, guaranteed to keep even the the reluctant reader turning the pages.
I would keep out words like simple and easy because some teenagers may find it condescending. Also they don't like being called children, the politically correct term is young people! lol The secret is to keep them on your side with your description.
Do you wanna hear a long joke?
A joke is a short story or series of words spoken or communicated with the intent of being laughed at or found humorous by either listener/reader or performer/writer. A practical joke differs in that the humor is not verbal, but mainly physical (e.g. throwing a custard pie in the direction of somebody's face). Some jokes are not funny.
Jokes are performed either in a staged situation, such as a comedy in front of an audience, or informally for the entertainment of participants and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter, although loud groans are also a common response to some forms of jokes, such as puns and shaggy dog stories.
Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being:
Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's two hundred and seventeen year old joke and his analysis:
"An Indian at an Englishman's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..."
Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings.
Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious".
Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyzes humor and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science.
Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986).
Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly.
Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990).
Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognizing stories and behavior and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example:
Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter.
Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line.
Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behavior, thus saving time in the set-up.
Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (eg the genie and a lamp): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern.
In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1].
Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthful in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural happiness-inducing chemicals, into the bloodstream.
One of the most complete and informative books on different types of jokes and how to tell them is Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor (1971), which encompasses several broad categories of humor, and gives useful tips on how to tell them, whom to tell them to, and ways to change the joke to fit one's audience.
[edit] Rules
The rules of humor are analogous to those of poetry, as said the French philosopher Henri Bergson: "In every wit there is something of a poet"[1](In this essay Bergson viewed the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself.) These common rules are mainly: precision, synthesis and rhythm.
Speed also plays a role, such as enhancing the laugh effect. As Mack Sennett showed in his works, the more frantic the funnier.
[edit] Exactness
To reach exactness, the comedian must choose the words in order to obtain a vivid, perfectly in focus image, and to avoid being generic (that drives the audience confused, and results in no laugh); to properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get exactness. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]):
“ Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. ”
[edit] Synthesis
As Shakespeare said in Hamlet, "Brevity is the soul of wit"[2]. That means that a joke is best when it expresses the maximum meaning with a minimal number of words; this is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke. An example from Woody Allen:
“ I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ”
Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has lead to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern breaking "punchline". Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights", and more modernly, Family Guy contains numerous such examples, most notably, in the episode Wasted Talent where Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick trope, and holds his shin whilst exhaling and inhaling to quiet the pain. This goes on for considerably longer than expected. This joke is repeated again in the fourth season in the episode Brian Goes Back to College when Peter is dressed as John "Hannibal" Smith from The A-Team.
[edit] Rhythm
Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing
The joke content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line).
In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It isn't necessarily the Rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and is a kind of punchline.
[edit] Conclusions
When a technically-good joke is referred changing it with paraphrasing, it is not laughable anymore; this is because the paraphrase, changing some term or moving it within the sentence, breaks the joke mechanism (its vividness, brevity and rhythm), and its power and effectiveness are lost. Douglas Adams described sentences where the joke word is the final word as "comically weighted." This saves the "payoff" until the last possible moment, allowing the expectation for surprise to reach its highest point, while the mind is more firmly rooted in the pattern established by the rest of the sentence. [citation needed]
[edit] Why do we laugh (model of appreciation)
No satisfactory theory of laughter that explains why humans laugh has yet gained wide acceptance.
Some of the prominent explanations (that is a humor appreciation model) comes from part of the ideas contained in the psychology essay Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, by Sigmund Freud (1905) [3].
According to Freud's operational description, we laugh when the unconscious energy emerges to reach the conscious mind; and it reaches it unexpectedly thanks to the techniques used by the comedian. This exceeding energy is rapidly discharged in the form of laughter.
Freud distinguishes three fields: the comic, the wit, and the humor.
[edit] Comic
In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child.
Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognizes the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen:
“ "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". ”
The typical comic technique is the disproportion.
[edit] Wit
In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"[3](Freud literally calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure".); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen:
“ I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. ”
Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes[4].
Irony can be seen as belonging to this field.
[edit] Humor
In the comedy field, humor induces an "economized expenditure of emotion" (Freud literally calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).[3][5] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it. The profound meaning of the void feel of a humor joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen:
“ Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. ”
This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humor can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program.
Black humor and sarcasm belong to this field.
[edit] Cycles
Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)[6] Folklorists have identified several such cycles:
the elephant joke cycle that began in 1962
the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller[7]
viola jokes[8]
the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster[9][10][11]
the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster[12]
the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II[13]
the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom[14]
the Dead Baby Joke Cycle[15]
the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders[16]
the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle[17]
the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle[18]
the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-***** joke cycle"[19]
the Radio Erevan (or Yerevan) Joke Cycle, which satirizes Radio Yerevan as offering naive or stupid answers to questions from its listeners, answers that often satirize Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Russian society, or Russian institutions[20]
the Jewish American Princess (or JAP) Joke Cycle that appeared in the late 1970s, comprising jokes about a JAP who is "vain, pampered, spoiled, sexually manipulative, materialistic, bossy, uncultured, loud, overdressed and bedecked with jewels, a bubble-head, a younger version of the Jewish wife, and spoiled by a doting father"[21]
Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled and applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").[22]
Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".[23]
[edit] Types of jokes
Jokes often depend on the humor of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category.
[edit] Subjects
Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottos, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the you have two cows genre, derive humor from comparing different political systems.
Professional humor includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other.
Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders.
Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive.
For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish, or some combination. The British find humor in poking fun at any race, including their own, although this statement is a gross generalisation. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples.
Additionally, many cultures have Black jokes, which exploit the supposed stupidity and/or supposed incompetence of people of African descent.
Racially offensive humor is increasingly unacceptable, but there are similar jokes based on other stereotypes such as blonde jokes.
Religious jokes fall into several categories:
Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes)
Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc.
Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..."
Letters and addresses to God.
Self-deprecating or self-effacing humor is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humor. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humor as a leveling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke.
Self-deprecating humor has also been used by politicians, who recognize its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?".
Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. Many dirty jokes are also sexist.
Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humor; to joke about disability is considered in this group.
Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..
Anti Jokes are jokes that aren't funny in normal sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on absurdity, surrealism and abstractness of the joke or situation to provide entertainment.
An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant.
[edit] Styles
The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, lightbulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between..." joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts.
Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling.
A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with a weak or completely nonexistent punchline. The humor lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy"Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke laughter in general). In the theater, its Western origins are in ancient Greece, like tragedy, a genre characterised by a grave fall from grace by a protagonist having high social standing. Comedy, in contrast, portrays a conflict or agon (Classical Greek ἀγών) between a young hero and an older authority, a confrontation described by Northrop Frye as a struggle between a "society of youth" and a "society of the old". A more recent development is to regard this struggle as a mere pretext for disguise, a comical device centered on uncertainties regarding the meaning of social identity. The basis of comedy would then be a plot mechanism conceived to engender misunderstandings either about a hero's identity or about social being in general. [1]
Returning to the popular term comedy, it is known to be difficult to describe. Humor being subjective, one may or may not find something humorous because it is either too offensive or not offensive enough. Comedy is judged according to a person’s taste. Some enjoy cerebral fare such as irony or black comedy; others may prefer scatological humor (e.g. the "fart joke") or slapstick. A common gender stereotype that plays on this convention is that men love the comedy of The Three Stooges, while women do not.[citation needed]
While hard to pin down, it can safely be said that most good comedy, as with a good joke, contains within it variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, and the effect of opposite expectations. The audience becomes a part of the experience, if it is to be successful. Sometimes, it is the fulfillment of the expectation which is part of the experience, such as the long "take" of a Jack Benny, resolved, paradoxically, when the expected happens. Comedy is a serious business, and one only knows it when one sees it or hears it.
Comedy is the term applied to theatrical dramas, the chief object of which are to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and so on. As compared with tragedy, it is distinguished by having a (the comedies).
[edit] Derivation
The word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κωμῳδία, which is a compound either of κῶμος (revel) or κώμη (village) and ᾠδή (singing): it is possible that κῶμος itself is derived from κώμη, and originally meant a village revel.
In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in poking fun at other people or stereotypes.[2]
Aristotle, in his Poetics, tells us the same: that comedy originated in Phallic songs and the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly. He also adds that the origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated seriously.[3]
P.W. Buckham writes that "the lighter sort of Iambic became Comic poets, the graver became Tragic instead of Heroic".[4]
The word comes into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia. It has passed through various shades of meaning. In the middle ages it meant simply a story with a happy ending. Thus some of Chaucer's tales are called comedies, and in this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Commedia (cf. his Epistola X., in which he speaks of the comic style as "loqutio vulgaris, in qua et mulierculae communicant"; again "comoedia vero remisse et humiliter"; "differt a tragoedia per hoc, quod t. in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis"). Subsequently the term is applied to mystery plays with a happy ending. The modern usage combines this sense with that in which Renaissance scholars applied it to the ancient comedies.
The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός), which strictly means that which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking": it is distinguished from "humorous" or "witty" inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic, have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed that the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Physiological explanations have been given by Kant, Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression. Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke laughter in general). In the theater, its Western origins are in ancient Greece, like tragedy, a genre characterised by a grave fall from grace by a protagonist having high social standing.
Humour (also spelled humor) is the ability or quality of people, objects, or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. The term encompasses a form of entertainment or human communication which evokes such feelings, or which makes people laugh or feel happy. The origin of the term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which stated that a mix of fluids known as humours (Greek: χυμός, chymos, literally: juice or sap, metaphorically: flavour) controlled human health and emotion.
A sense of humour is the ability to experience humour, a quality which all people share, although the extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, and context. For example, young children (of any background) particularly favour slapstick, such as Punch and Judy puppet shows. Satire may rely more on understanding the target of the humour, and thus tends to appeal to more mature audiences.
Figure of speech
Humorous triple and paraprosdokian
Enthymeme
Syllepsis (zeugma)
Hyperbole
Understatement
Inherently funny words with sounds that make them amusing in the language of delivery
Irony, where a statement or situation implies both a superficial and a concealed meaning which are at odds with each other.
Joke
Adages, often in the form of paradox "laws" of nature, such as Murphy's law or lemon law
Stereotyping, such as blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, racial jokes, viola jokes.
Sick Jokes, arousing humour through grotesque, violent or exceptionally cruel scenarios. Soldiers in the field of battle often use 'trench humour' to keep morale up in appalling circumstances.
Riddle
Word play
Oxymoron
Pun
Non-verbal
Bathos
Exaggerated or unexpected gestures and movements
Character driven, deriving humour from the way characters act in specific situations, without punchlines. Exemplified by The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Clash of context humour, such "fish out of water"
Comic sounds
Deliberate ambiguity and confusion with reality, often performed by Andy Kaufman
Unintentional humour, that is, making people laugh without intending to (as with Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space)
Funny pictures: Photos or drawings/caricatures that are intentionally or unintentionally humorous.
Sight gags
Visual humour[citation needed]: Similar to the sight gag, but encompassing narrative in theatre or comics, or on film or video.
Understanding humour
Some claim that humour cannot or should not be explained. Author E. B. White once said that "Humour can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." However, attempts to do just that have been made.
The term "humour" as formerly applied in comedy, referred to the interpretation of the sublime and the ridiculous. In this context, humour is often a subjective experience as it depends on a special mood or perspective from its audience to be effective. Arthur Schopenhauer lamented the misuse of the term (the German loanword from English) to mean any type of comedy.
Language is an approximation of thoughts through symbolic manipulation, and the gap between the expectations inherent in those symbols and the breaking of those expectations leads to laughter (This is true for many emotions, and is not limited to laughter)[citation needed]. Irony is explicitly this form of comedy, whereas slapstick takes more passive social norms relating to physicality and plays with them[citation needed]. In other words, comedy is a sign of a 'bug' in the symbolic make-up of language, as well as a self-correcting mechanism for such bugs[citation needed]. Once the problem in meaning has been described through a joke, people immediately begin correcting their impressions of the symbols that have been mocked. This is one explanation why jokes are often funny only when told the first time.
Another explanation is that humour frequently contains an unexpected, often sudden, shift in perspective. Nearly anything can be the object of this perspective twist. This, however, does not explain why people being humiliated and verbally abused, without it being unexpected or a shift in perspective, is considered funny - ref. The Office.
Another explanation is that the essence of humour lies in two ingredients; the relevance factor and the surprise factor. First, something familiar (or relevant) to the audience is presented. (However, the relevant situation may be so familiar to the audience that it doesn't always have to be presented, as occurs in absurd humour, for example). From there, they may think they know the natural follow-through thoughts or conclusion. The next principal ingredient is the presentation of something different from the audience's expectations, or else the natural result of interpreting the original situation in a different, less common way (see twist or surprise factor). For example:
“ A man speaks to his doctor after an operation. He says, "Doc, now that the surgery is done, will I be able to play the piano?" The doctor replies, "Of course!" The man says, "Good, because I couldn't before!" ”
The Simpsons is noted for using this technique many times to evoke humour. Former show runner David Mirkin often refers to it as the “screw-you-audience” joke. A prime example is in the episode "And Maggie Makes Three", wherein Patty and Selma are about to expose the secret of Marge's pregnancy:
Selma: (Looking at the very beginning of the phonebook) "Hi Mr. Aaronson, I'd like to inform you that Marge Simpson is pregnant."
Selma: (Looking exhausted at the very end of the phonebook) "Just thought you'd like to know, Mr. Zackowski. There! Aaronson and Zackowski are the town's biggest gossips. Within an hour, everyone will know.
Both explanations can be put under the general heading of "failed expectations". In language, or a situation with a relevance factor, or even a sublime setting, an audience has a certain expectation. If these expectations fail in a way that has some credulity, humour results. It has been postulated that the laughter/feel good element of humour is a biological function that helps one deal with the new, expanded point of view: a lawyer thinks differently than a priest or rabbi (below), a banana peel on the floor could be dangerous. This is why some link of credulity is important rather than any random line being a punchline.
For this reason, many jokes work in threes. For instance, a class of jokes exists beginning with the formulaic line "A priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer are sitting in a bar..." (or close variations on this). Typically, the priest will make a remark, the rabbi will continue in the same vein, and then the lawyer will make a third point that forms a sharp break from the established pattern, but nonetheless forms a logical (or at least stereotypical) response. Example of a variation:
“ A gardener, an architect, and a lawyer are discussing which of their vocations is the most ancient. The gardener comments, "My vocation goes back to the Garden of Eden, when God told Adam to tend the garden." The architect comments, "My vocation goes back to the creation, when God created the world itself from primordial chaos." They both look curiously at the lawyer, who asks, "And who do you think created the primordial chaos?" ”
In this vein of thought, knowing a punch line in advance, or some situation which would spoil the delivery of the punchline, can destroy the surprise factor, and in turn destroy the entertainment value or amusement the joke may have otherwise provided. Conversely, a person previously holding the same unexpected conclusions or secret perspectives as a comedian could derive amusement from hearing those same thoughts expressed and elaborated. That there is commonality, unity of thought, and an ability to openly analyse and express these (where secrecy and inhibited exploration was previously thought necessary) can be both the relevance and the surprise factors in these situations. This phenomenon explains much of the success of comedians who deal with same-gender and same-culture audiences on gender conflicts and cultural topics, respectively.
Notable studies of humour have come from the pens of Aristotle in The Poetics (Part V) and of Schopenhauer.
There also exist linguistic and psycholinguistic studies of humour, irony, parody and pretence. Prominent theoreticians in this field include Raymond Gibbs, Herbert Clark, Michael Billig, Willibald Ruch, Victor Raskin, Eliot Oring, and Salvatore Attardo. Although many writers have emphasised the positive or cathartic effects of humour some, notably Billig, have emphasised the potential of humour for cruelty and its involvement with social control and regulation.
A number of science fiction writers have explored the theory of humour. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein proposes that humour comes from pain, and that laughter is a mechanism to keep us from crying. Isaac Asimov, on the other hand, proposes (in his first jokebook, Treasury of Humor) that the essence of humour is anticlimax: an abrupt change in point of view, in which trivial matters are suddenly elevated in importance above those that would normally be far more important.
Approaches to a general theory of humour have generally referred to analogy or some kind of analogical process of mapping structure from one domain of experience onto another. An early precursor of this approach would be Arthur Koestler, who identified humour as one of three areas of human creativity (science and art being the other two) that use structure mapping (then termed "bisociation" by Koestler) to create novel meanings[1]. Tony Veale, who is taking a more formalised computational approach than Koestler did, has written on the role of metaphor and metonymy in humour[2][3][4], using inspiration from Koestler as well as from Dedre Gentner´s theory of structure-mapping, George Lakoff´s and Mark Johnson´s theory of conceptual metaphor and Mark Turner´s and Gilles Fauconnier´s theory of conceptual blending.
Humour evolution
As any form of art, humour techniques evolve through time. Perception of humour varies greatly among social demographics and indeed from person to person. Throughout history comedy has been used as a form of entertainment all over the world, whether in the courts of the kings or the villages of the far east. Both a social etiquette and a certain intelligence can be displayed through forms of wit and sarcasm.18th-century German author Georg Lichtenberg said that "the more you know humour, the more you become demanding in fineness".
Humour formula
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Root components:
some surprise/misdirection, contradiction, ambiguity or paradox.
appealing to feelings or to emotions.
similar to reality, but not real
Methods:
metaphor
hyperbole
reframing
timing
Rowan Atkinson explains in his lecture Funny Business, that an object or a person can become funny in three different ways. They are:
By being in an unusual place
By behaving in an unusual way
By being the wrong size
Most sight gags fit into one or more of these categories.
Humour is also sometimes described as an ingredient in spiritual life. Some Masters have added it to their teachings in various forms. A famous figure in spiritual humour is the laughing Buddha, who would answer all questions with a laugh
Do you wanna hear a long joke?
Where was the joke??
♥♥We Love You Michael!!!!♥♥
Reply:Wow Report It
Reply:WOW dat wus da most worthless 2 minutes of mah life . . . . Report It
Reply:waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long!! who would actually take the time to type (or read!) that whole thing?! Report It
Reply:The fact that she said it was a joke, is the joke. Report It
Reply:This was so funny but I think you forgot the joke yourself. but I think you wanted to see how many people would comment on this, yes I did other wise you know what thought about your joke and I was bored. Report It
Reply:WOW! thanks for wasting so much of my time. Report It
Reply:Since you copied this from wikipedia you need to site the source so it is not considered plagiarism you stealing copier
Reply:Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!!
Since your such an expert, you should immediately know where that came from.
Reply:Thank you for your knowledge in this subject, I'll will never forget it.
Reply:Holy moly!
Reply:This was too long and I read the first sentence and decided I wasnt going to read it. Good job on the length though.
Reply:that looks long and boring.
Reply:what on earth made look at this and think "hey i should post this on yahoo!"
Reply:Well, I made it to the word "series"....
Reply:The next time I have 3 hours on my hands, I will read this. Sounds fascinating; I have never truly pondered the psychological implications of human "humor."
Reply:yeah i didnt read it but when i have a day to i will
Reply:No, I do not because there are no jokes in there, I think, and besides, you just copied from Wikipedia 'cause I can see all the [edit] things, which means there isn't much of a joke except info, lots of it.
Reply:Well. You just copy-pasted this from Wikipedia, right? I can tell. It's very obvious.
Reply:thanks. i love it.
Reply:kool
Jokes are performed either in a staged situation, such as a comedy in front of an audience, or informally for the entertainment of participants and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter, although loud groans are also a common response to some forms of jokes, such as puns and shaggy dog stories.
Why we laugh has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being:
Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's two hundred and seventeen year old joke and his analysis:
"An Indian at an Englishman's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished..."
Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings.
Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious".
Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyzes humor and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science.
Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986).
Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly.
Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990).
Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognizing stories and behavior and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example:
Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter.
Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line.
Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behavior, thus saving time in the set-up.
Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (eg the genie and a lamp): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern.
In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1].
Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthful in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural happiness-inducing chemicals, into the bloodstream.
One of the most complete and informative books on different types of jokes and how to tell them is Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor (1971), which encompasses several broad categories of humor, and gives useful tips on how to tell them, whom to tell them to, and ways to change the joke to fit one's audience.
[edit] Rules
The rules of humor are analogous to those of poetry, as said the French philosopher Henri Bergson: "In every wit there is something of a poet"[1](In this essay Bergson viewed the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself.) These common rules are mainly: precision, synthesis and rhythm.
Speed also plays a role, such as enhancing the laugh effect. As Mack Sennett showed in his works, the more frantic the funnier.
[edit] Exactness
To reach exactness, the comedian must choose the words in order to obtain a vivid, perfectly in focus image, and to avoid being generic (that drives the audience confused, and results in no laugh); to properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get exactness. An example by Woody Allen (from Side Effects, "A Giant Step for Mankind" story [2]):
“ Grasping the mouse firmly by the tail, I snapped it like a small whip, and the morsel of cheese came loose. ”
[edit] Synthesis
As Shakespeare said in Hamlet, "Brevity is the soul of wit"[2]. That means that a joke is best when it expresses the maximum meaning with a minimal number of words; this is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke. An example from Woody Allen:
“ I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ”
Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has lead to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern breaking "punchline". Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights", and more modernly, Family Guy contains numerous such examples, most notably, in the episode Wasted Talent where Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick trope, and holds his shin whilst exhaling and inhaling to quiet the pain. This goes on for considerably longer than expected. This joke is repeated again in the fourth season in the episode Brian Goes Back to College when Peter is dressed as John "Hannibal" Smith from The A-Team.
[edit] Rhythm
Main articles: Timing (linguistics) and Comic timing
The joke content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line).
In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It isn't necessarily the Rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and is a kind of punchline.
[edit] Conclusions
When a technically-good joke is referred changing it with paraphrasing, it is not laughable anymore; this is because the paraphrase, changing some term or moving it within the sentence, breaks the joke mechanism (its vividness, brevity and rhythm), and its power and effectiveness are lost. Douglas Adams described sentences where the joke word is the final word as "comically weighted." This saves the "payoff" until the last possible moment, allowing the expectation for surprise to reach its highest point, while the mind is more firmly rooted in the pattern established by the rest of the sentence. [citation needed]
[edit] Why do we laugh (model of appreciation)
No satisfactory theory of laughter that explains why humans laugh has yet gained wide acceptance.
Some of the prominent explanations (that is a humor appreciation model) comes from part of the ideas contained in the psychology essay Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, by Sigmund Freud (1905) [3].
According to Freud's operational description, we laugh when the unconscious energy emerges to reach the conscious mind; and it reaches it unexpectedly thanks to the techniques used by the comedian. This exceeding energy is rapidly discharged in the form of laughter.
Freud distinguishes three fields: the comic, the wit, and the humor.
[edit] Comic
In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child.
Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognizes the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen:
“ "My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot". ”
The typical comic technique is the disproportion.
[edit] Wit
In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"[3](Freud literally calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure".); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen:
“ I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman. ”
Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes[4].
Irony can be seen as belonging to this field.
[edit] Humor
In the comedy field, humor induces an "economized expenditure of emotion" (Freud literally calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).[3][5] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it. The profound meaning of the void feel of a humor joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen:
“ Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person. ”
This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humor can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program.
Black humor and sarcasm belong to this field.
[edit] Cycles
Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)[6] Folklorists have identified several such cycles:
the elephant joke cycle that began in 1962
the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller[7]
viola jokes[8]
the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster[9][10][11]
the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster[12]
the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II[13]
the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom[14]
the Dead Baby Joke Cycle[15]
the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders[16]
the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle[17]
the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle[18]
the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-***** joke cycle"[19]
the Radio Erevan (or Yerevan) Joke Cycle, which satirizes Radio Yerevan as offering naive or stupid answers to questions from its listeners, answers that often satirize Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Russian society, or Russian institutions[20]
the Jewish American Princess (or JAP) Joke Cycle that appeared in the late 1970s, comprising jokes about a JAP who is "vain, pampered, spoiled, sexually manipulative, materialistic, bossy, uncultured, loud, overdressed and bedecked with jewels, a bubble-head, a younger version of the Jewish wife, and spoiled by a doting father"[21]
Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled and applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").[22]
Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".[23]
[edit] Types of jokes
Jokes often depend on the humor of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category.
[edit] Subjects
Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottos, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the you have two cows genre, derive humor from comparing different political systems.
Professional humor includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other.
Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders.
Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive.
For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish, or some combination. The British find humor in poking fun at any race, including their own, although this statement is a gross generalisation. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples.
Additionally, many cultures have Black jokes, which exploit the supposed stupidity and/or supposed incompetence of people of African descent.
Racially offensive humor is increasingly unacceptable, but there are similar jokes based on other stereotypes such as blonde jokes.
Religious jokes fall into several categories:
Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes)
Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc.
Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..."
Letters and addresses to God.
Self-deprecating or self-effacing humor is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. Probably the best-known and most common example is Jewish humor. The egalitarian tradition was strong among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in which the powerful were often mocked subtly. Prominent members of the community were kidded during social gatherings, part a good-natured tradition of humor as a leveling device. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke.
Self-deprecating humor has also been used by politicians, who recognize its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism - for example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?".
Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. Many dirty jokes are also sexist.
Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humor; to joke about disability is considered in this group.
Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..
Anti Jokes are jokes that aren't funny in normal sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on absurdity, surrealism and abstractness of the joke or situation to provide entertainment.
An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, that involves an elephant.
[edit] Styles
The question / answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, lightbulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between..." joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts.
Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling.
A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with a weak or completely nonexistent punchline. The humor lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is. Shaggy jokes appear to date from the 1930s, although there are several competing variants for the "original" shaggy dog story. According to one, an advertisement is placed in a newspaper, searching for the shaggiest dog in the world. The teller of the joke then relates the story of the search for the shaggiest dog in extreme and exaggerated detail (flying around the world, climbing mountains, fending off sabre-toothed tigers, etc); a good teller will be able to stretch the story out to over half an hour. When the winning dog is finally presented, the advertiser takes a look at the dog and states: "I don't think he's so shaggy"Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke laughter in general). In the theater, its Western origins are in ancient Greece, like tragedy, a genre characterised by a grave fall from grace by a protagonist having high social standing. Comedy, in contrast, portrays a conflict or agon (Classical Greek ἀγών) between a young hero and an older authority, a confrontation described by Northrop Frye as a struggle between a "society of youth" and a "society of the old". A more recent development is to regard this struggle as a mere pretext for disguise, a comical device centered on uncertainties regarding the meaning of social identity. The basis of comedy would then be a plot mechanism conceived to engender misunderstandings either about a hero's identity or about social being in general. [1]
Returning to the popular term comedy, it is known to be difficult to describe. Humor being subjective, one may or may not find something humorous because it is either too offensive or not offensive enough. Comedy is judged according to a person’s taste. Some enjoy cerebral fare such as irony or black comedy; others may prefer scatological humor (e.g. the "fart joke") or slapstick. A common gender stereotype that plays on this convention is that men love the comedy of The Three Stooges, while women do not.[citation needed]
While hard to pin down, it can safely be said that most good comedy, as with a good joke, contains within it variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, and the effect of opposite expectations. The audience becomes a part of the experience, if it is to be successful. Sometimes, it is the fulfillment of the expectation which is part of the experience, such as the long "take" of a Jack Benny, resolved, paradoxically, when the expected happens. Comedy is a serious business, and one only knows it when one sees it or hears it.
Comedy is the term applied to theatrical dramas, the chief object of which are to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and so on. As compared with tragedy, it is distinguished by having a (the comedies).
[edit] Derivation
The word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κωμῳδία, which is a compound either of κῶμος (revel) or κώμη (village) and ᾠδή (singing): it is possible that κῶμος itself is derived from κώμη, and originally meant a village revel.
In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of fertility festivals or gatherings, or also in poking fun at other people or stereotypes.[2]
Aristotle, in his Poetics, tells us the same: that comedy originated in Phallic songs and the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly. He also adds that the origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated seriously.[3]
P.W. Buckham writes that "the lighter sort of Iambic became Comic poets, the graver became Tragic instead of Heroic".[4]
The word comes into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia. It has passed through various shades of meaning. In the middle ages it meant simply a story with a happy ending. Thus some of Chaucer's tales are called comedies, and in this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Commedia (cf. his Epistola X., in which he speaks of the comic style as "loqutio vulgaris, in qua et mulierculae communicant"; again "comoedia vero remisse et humiliter"; "differt a tragoedia per hoc, quod t. in principio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis"). Subsequently the term is applied to mystery plays with a happy ending. The modern usage combines this sense with that in which Renaissance scholars applied it to the ancient comedies.
The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός), which strictly means that which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the sense of "laughter-provoking": it is distinguished from "humorous" or "witty" inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic, have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed that the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Physiological explanations have been given by Kant, Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression. Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke laughter in general). In the theater, its Western origins are in ancient Greece, like tragedy, a genre characterised by a grave fall from grace by a protagonist having high social standing.
Humour (also spelled humor) is the ability or quality of people, objects, or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. The term encompasses a form of entertainment or human communication which evokes such feelings, or which makes people laugh or feel happy. The origin of the term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which stated that a mix of fluids known as humours (Greek: χυμός, chymos, literally: juice or sap, metaphorically: flavour) controlled human health and emotion.
A sense of humour is the ability to experience humour, a quality which all people share, although the extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, and context. For example, young children (of any background) particularly favour slapstick, such as Punch and Judy puppet shows. Satire may rely more on understanding the target of the humour, and thus tends to appeal to more mature audiences.
Figure of speech
Humorous triple and paraprosdokian
Enthymeme
Syllepsis (zeugma)
Hyperbole
Understatement
Inherently funny words with sounds that make them amusing in the language of delivery
Irony, where a statement or situation implies both a superficial and a concealed meaning which are at odds with each other.
Joke
Adages, often in the form of paradox "laws" of nature, such as Murphy's law or lemon law
Stereotyping, such as blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, racial jokes, viola jokes.
Sick Jokes, arousing humour through grotesque, violent or exceptionally cruel scenarios. Soldiers in the field of battle often use 'trench humour' to keep morale up in appalling circumstances.
Riddle
Word play
Oxymoron
Pun
Non-verbal
Bathos
Exaggerated or unexpected gestures and movements
Character driven, deriving humour from the way characters act in specific situations, without punchlines. Exemplified by The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Clash of context humour, such "fish out of water"
Comic sounds
Deliberate ambiguity and confusion with reality, often performed by Andy Kaufman
Unintentional humour, that is, making people laugh without intending to (as with Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space)
Funny pictures: Photos or drawings/caricatures that are intentionally or unintentionally humorous.
Sight gags
Visual humour[citation needed]: Similar to the sight gag, but encompassing narrative in theatre or comics, or on film or video.
Understanding humour
Some claim that humour cannot or should not be explained. Author E. B. White once said that "Humour can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." However, attempts to do just that have been made.
The term "humour" as formerly applied in comedy, referred to the interpretation of the sublime and the ridiculous. In this context, humour is often a subjective experience as it depends on a special mood or perspective from its audience to be effective. Arthur Schopenhauer lamented the misuse of the term (the German loanword from English) to mean any type of comedy.
Language is an approximation of thoughts through symbolic manipulation, and the gap between the expectations inherent in those symbols and the breaking of those expectations leads to laughter (This is true for many emotions, and is not limited to laughter)[citation needed]. Irony is explicitly this form of comedy, whereas slapstick takes more passive social norms relating to physicality and plays with them[citation needed]. In other words, comedy is a sign of a 'bug' in the symbolic make-up of language, as well as a self-correcting mechanism for such bugs[citation needed]. Once the problem in meaning has been described through a joke, people immediately begin correcting their impressions of the symbols that have been mocked. This is one explanation why jokes are often funny only when told the first time.
Another explanation is that humour frequently contains an unexpected, often sudden, shift in perspective. Nearly anything can be the object of this perspective twist. This, however, does not explain why people being humiliated and verbally abused, without it being unexpected or a shift in perspective, is considered funny - ref. The Office.
Another explanation is that the essence of humour lies in two ingredients; the relevance factor and the surprise factor. First, something familiar (or relevant) to the audience is presented. (However, the relevant situation may be so familiar to the audience that it doesn't always have to be presented, as occurs in absurd humour, for example). From there, they may think they know the natural follow-through thoughts or conclusion. The next principal ingredient is the presentation of something different from the audience's expectations, or else the natural result of interpreting the original situation in a different, less common way (see twist or surprise factor). For example:
“ A man speaks to his doctor after an operation. He says, "Doc, now that the surgery is done, will I be able to play the piano?" The doctor replies, "Of course!" The man says, "Good, because I couldn't before!" ”
The Simpsons is noted for using this technique many times to evoke humour. Former show runner David Mirkin often refers to it as the “screw-you-audience” joke. A prime example is in the episode "And Maggie Makes Three", wherein Patty and Selma are about to expose the secret of Marge's pregnancy:
Selma: (Looking at the very beginning of the phonebook) "Hi Mr. Aaronson, I'd like to inform you that Marge Simpson is pregnant."
Selma: (Looking exhausted at the very end of the phonebook) "Just thought you'd like to know, Mr. Zackowski. There! Aaronson and Zackowski are the town's biggest gossips. Within an hour, everyone will know.
Both explanations can be put under the general heading of "failed expectations". In language, or a situation with a relevance factor, or even a sublime setting, an audience has a certain expectation. If these expectations fail in a way that has some credulity, humour results. It has been postulated that the laughter/feel good element of humour is a biological function that helps one deal with the new, expanded point of view: a lawyer thinks differently than a priest or rabbi (below), a banana peel on the floor could be dangerous. This is why some link of credulity is important rather than any random line being a punchline.
For this reason, many jokes work in threes. For instance, a class of jokes exists beginning with the formulaic line "A priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer are sitting in a bar..." (or close variations on this). Typically, the priest will make a remark, the rabbi will continue in the same vein, and then the lawyer will make a third point that forms a sharp break from the established pattern, but nonetheless forms a logical (or at least stereotypical) response. Example of a variation:
“ A gardener, an architect, and a lawyer are discussing which of their vocations is the most ancient. The gardener comments, "My vocation goes back to the Garden of Eden, when God told Adam to tend the garden." The architect comments, "My vocation goes back to the creation, when God created the world itself from primordial chaos." They both look curiously at the lawyer, who asks, "And who do you think created the primordial chaos?" ”
In this vein of thought, knowing a punch line in advance, or some situation which would spoil the delivery of the punchline, can destroy the surprise factor, and in turn destroy the entertainment value or amusement the joke may have otherwise provided. Conversely, a person previously holding the same unexpected conclusions or secret perspectives as a comedian could derive amusement from hearing those same thoughts expressed and elaborated. That there is commonality, unity of thought, and an ability to openly analyse and express these (where secrecy and inhibited exploration was previously thought necessary) can be both the relevance and the surprise factors in these situations. This phenomenon explains much of the success of comedians who deal with same-gender and same-culture audiences on gender conflicts and cultural topics, respectively.
Notable studies of humour have come from the pens of Aristotle in The Poetics (Part V) and of Schopenhauer.
There also exist linguistic and psycholinguistic studies of humour, irony, parody and pretence. Prominent theoreticians in this field include Raymond Gibbs, Herbert Clark, Michael Billig, Willibald Ruch, Victor Raskin, Eliot Oring, and Salvatore Attardo. Although many writers have emphasised the positive or cathartic effects of humour some, notably Billig, have emphasised the potential of humour for cruelty and its involvement with social control and regulation.
A number of science fiction writers have explored the theory of humour. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein proposes that humour comes from pain, and that laughter is a mechanism to keep us from crying. Isaac Asimov, on the other hand, proposes (in his first jokebook, Treasury of Humor) that the essence of humour is anticlimax: an abrupt change in point of view, in which trivial matters are suddenly elevated in importance above those that would normally be far more important.
Approaches to a general theory of humour have generally referred to analogy or some kind of analogical process of mapping structure from one domain of experience onto another. An early precursor of this approach would be Arthur Koestler, who identified humour as one of three areas of human creativity (science and art being the other two) that use structure mapping (then termed "bisociation" by Koestler) to create novel meanings[1]. Tony Veale, who is taking a more formalised computational approach than Koestler did, has written on the role of metaphor and metonymy in humour[2][3][4], using inspiration from Koestler as well as from Dedre Gentner´s theory of structure-mapping, George Lakoff´s and Mark Johnson´s theory of conceptual metaphor and Mark Turner´s and Gilles Fauconnier´s theory of conceptual blending.
Humour evolution
As any form of art, humour techniques evolve through time. Perception of humour varies greatly among social demographics and indeed from person to person. Throughout history comedy has been used as a form of entertainment all over the world, whether in the courts of the kings or the villages of the far east. Both a social etiquette and a certain intelligence can be displayed through forms of wit and sarcasm.18th-century German author Georg Lichtenberg said that "the more you know humour, the more you become demanding in fineness".
Humour formula
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This article has been tagged since October 2006.
Root components:
some surprise/misdirection, contradiction, ambiguity or paradox.
appealing to feelings or to emotions.
similar to reality, but not real
Methods:
metaphor
hyperbole
reframing
timing
Rowan Atkinson explains in his lecture Funny Business, that an object or a person can become funny in three different ways. They are:
By being in an unusual place
By behaving in an unusual way
By being the wrong size
Most sight gags fit into one or more of these categories.
Humour is also sometimes described as an ingredient in spiritual life. Some Masters have added it to their teachings in various forms. A famous figure in spiritual humour is the laughing Buddha, who would answer all questions with a laugh
Do you wanna hear a long joke?
Where was the joke??
♥♥We Love You Michael!!!!♥♥
Reply:Wow Report It
Reply:WOW dat wus da most worthless 2 minutes of mah life . . . . Report It
Reply:waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long!! who would actually take the time to type (or read!) that whole thing?! Report It
Reply:The fact that she said it was a joke, is the joke. Report It
Reply:This was so funny but I think you forgot the joke yourself. but I think you wanted to see how many people would comment on this, yes I did other wise you know what thought about your joke and I was bored. Report It
Reply:WOW! thanks for wasting so much of my time. Report It
Reply:Since you copied this from wikipedia you need to site the source so it is not considered plagiarism you stealing copier
Reply:Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!!
Since your such an expert, you should immediately know where that came from.
Reply:Thank you for your knowledge in this subject, I'll will never forget it.
Reply:Holy moly!
Reply:This was too long and I read the first sentence and decided I wasnt going to read it. Good job on the length though.
Reply:that looks long and boring.
Reply:what on earth made look at this and think "hey i should post this on yahoo!"
Reply:Well, I made it to the word "series"....
Reply:The next time I have 3 hours on my hands, I will read this. Sounds fascinating; I have never truly pondered the psychological implications of human "humor."
Reply:yeah i didnt read it but when i have a day to i will
Reply:No, I do not because there are no jokes in there, I think, and besides, you just copied from Wikipedia 'cause I can see all the [edit] things, which means there isn't much of a joke except info, lots of it.
Reply:Well. You just copy-pasted this from Wikipedia, right? I can tell. It's very obvious.
Reply:thanks. i love it.
Reply:kool
How many of you think this site should be seperated into age groups?
You get alot of immature, stupid answers for your questions. You get alot of immature, stupid questions that you waste your time looking at.
Though it may not be attainable for whatever reason, I think yahoo answers should provide the following:
There should be seperate age groups with all 24 subject categories in each age group to avoid alot of stupid answers just to get points.
There should be a "mature audiences only" (over 18) category for things that young people shouldnt see, so we adults can talk about real things get real answers and feel free to curse if you desire.
There should be a rating for every user on this site. You could rate each persons answer on a scale of 1-10. If they average less than a 25% rating overall, they should have their asking and answering privileges taken away! Kind of like ebay's member ratings.
Do you agree or disagree and why?
How many of you think this site should be seperated into age groups?
Clearly disagree. U'll get immature answers from all ages.
Perhaps the percentage of silly answers would go down
by dividing people into minors and above 18(or something like that). That though would also cut off possibly good answers. It basically goes against the spirit of Internet, which is none other than the communication of people beyond tabs and discrimination.
After all you can always choose not to answer.
As for bad language and 'mature content'...
(Well besides the fact kids on the Internet know and have seen it all by now.)
Yahoo could use a search engine to ban questions involving X content from minors. Not that minors are dum enough to declare...
Reply:for a stupid answer, I give a stupid question. If I answer an actual question, I will answer it with facts.
Reply:I AGREE because:
1.Some questions are serious, but people answer with a lack of maturity
2.Some questions are not for litle kids
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!
Reply:i agree, there are some no non sense question %26amp; stupid answers. Also some of the language is not appropriate for children. Personally I don't care for some of the language.
Reply:3,486 jk
I agree with most of what you say as I believe a lot of immature adults throw out a lot of stuff not suitable for young minds!
Reply:I agree with this because some question asked are like : what is your fav colour which is pretty pointless. We should should try get google to age seperate. See ya
Reply:absolutely,a great question and basically i would rather say this it's a awareness for every adult reader.we gossip,talk,write or tell with so-many words which can be not suitable for the younger side.
so,being a good citizen i heartly appreciate your comments.
thank you very much.
dental surgery
Though it may not be attainable for whatever reason, I think yahoo answers should provide the following:
There should be seperate age groups with all 24 subject categories in each age group to avoid alot of stupid answers just to get points.
There should be a "mature audiences only" (over 18) category for things that young people shouldnt see, so we adults can talk about real things get real answers and feel free to curse if you desire.
There should be a rating for every user on this site. You could rate each persons answer on a scale of 1-10. If they average less than a 25% rating overall, they should have their asking and answering privileges taken away! Kind of like ebay's member ratings.
Do you agree or disagree and why?
How many of you think this site should be seperated into age groups?
Clearly disagree. U'll get immature answers from all ages.
Perhaps the percentage of silly answers would go down
by dividing people into minors and above 18(or something like that). That though would also cut off possibly good answers. It basically goes against the spirit of Internet, which is none other than the communication of people beyond tabs and discrimination.
After all you can always choose not to answer.
As for bad language and 'mature content'...
(Well besides the fact kids on the Internet know and have seen it all by now.)
Yahoo could use a search engine to ban questions involving X content from minors. Not that minors are dum enough to declare...
Reply:for a stupid answer, I give a stupid question. If I answer an actual question, I will answer it with facts.
Reply:I AGREE because:
1.Some questions are serious, but people answer with a lack of maturity
2.Some questions are not for litle kids
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!
Reply:i agree, there are some no non sense question %26amp; stupid answers. Also some of the language is not appropriate for children. Personally I don't care for some of the language.
Reply:3,486 jk
I agree with most of what you say as I believe a lot of immature adults throw out a lot of stuff not suitable for young minds!
Reply:I agree with this because some question asked are like : what is your fav colour which is pretty pointless. We should should try get google to age seperate. See ya
Reply:absolutely,a great question and basically i would rather say this it's a awareness for every adult reader.we gossip,talk,write or tell with so-many words which can be not suitable for the younger side.
so,being a good citizen i heartly appreciate your comments.
thank you very much.
dental surgery
The Wii is an inferior system to the Xbox360 and PS3. What do you think?
I reckon it depends on what kind of a person is buying the console...for example, if it is for senior folks aka senior citizens or kids I would certainly recommends Wii as it tends to simpler and has games which are more appealing to those audiences.
If it is for teenager or an young adult, I would certainly recommend either the 360 or the PS 3 as they tend to offer more complete/hardcore gaming experience.
Once you have the audience sorted out....then perhaps you might end up with the debate between PS3 and 360. At a broad level, PS3 and 360 have similar capabilities however I would suggest PS3 if the cost is not a factor (360 is certainly cheaper than PS3). for the following reasons....
The Wii is an inferior system to the Xbox360 and PS3. What do you think?
The Xbox right now is the dominant system next to the Wii. The PS3 flopped big time from lack of availability and hardware issues. That CPU Processing Chip might be a huge amount of power and energy, but it is worthless if the majority of them have issues and are messing up. Not to mention the playback for PS2 and 1 games not working properly. 500 and 600 dollar price tag really turns people off big time especially for the bad launch games they had. Resistance was the only game that made high scores and worth buying. But 600 dollars for one 60 dollar game isn't going to sway someone to buy the system yet.
The Xbox 360 is doing mighty well, the Wii is doing surprisingly well and has made a huge hit especially for releasing the new Zelda for launch games. The PS3 needs to get their act together and not be afraid to spend a little money to fix their systems up and let them perform their true power and release out more to the public.
Reply:I couldn't give a rats about the power! I want to play games! And the Wii delivers in respect to awesomeness and innovation! That is why Nintendo are owning and Sony and Microsoft have to "borrow" ideas from them! For Example, motion sensors in the contorllers! Of course The Wii also is way cheaper! I am 18 and that age thing you mentioned... load of tripe!
Reply:gaming is in the eye of the beholder...............
Reply:The Wii is designed for anybody, literally anyone can play it and enjoy it.
Nintendo have focused more on gameplay which makes the Xbox360 in a way; inferior to the Nintendo Wii.
It depends which areas you look at and what style a gamer you are.
If you like in-depth games with intense, amazing graphics, and realistic sounds when you walk leaves crackle and crunch, twigs snap and that mark is permenantly scarred on the game's interface. Games where each snowflake is different and no two raindrops are ever the same? Games where you play in 12.1 surround sound? Then get something like an Xbox360 or even a Playstation3.
But!
If you like games that are focused on the gaming expirience so much that you feel like you are in the game, where you are off the edge of your seat crouching on the floor as bullets fly past your head and you can really experience the game first hand, where you can buy pretty much any game and know it will be a fun, worthful experience for any agegroup/type of person... Get a Wii.
I got a Wii for Christmas, and I can honestly say it is the best games console that I have ever played (My reasons are above). But hey, it depends on what type a gamer you are, and what type of games you enjoy!
Good luck in making your decision, but I would go with Wii!
Reply:http://www.mobdesk.tk
Reply:This question is a matter of opinion. The Playstation 3 is by far the best system regarding power and graphics. However, is it the best just because it is the most powerfull is a different question. The Wii is only 250 dollars as opposed to the PS3 basic model for 500 dollars. Also, the Wii is more geared to fun with the whole family allowing everyone to get involved because the controller is completely responsive to the users motion. "Wii can all play together." Although this is a very compelling argument to by the Wii, Playstation 3 reaches a more mature audience with game titles geared at an older age group. The PS3 was a development over the past ten years and has revolutionalized the way video games will look and operate. One other aspect the PS3 holds over the Wii is that it plays Blu-Ray discs. If your looking to build up your entertainment center, the PS3 might not be a bad place to start. Otherwise, if its pure fun and less cost, the Wii is for you.
Reply:PS3 is a nice all in one package with the Blu-Ray playback.
Reply:dude i have all three systems there cool man
If it is for teenager or an young adult, I would certainly recommend either the 360 or the PS 3 as they tend to offer more complete/hardcore gaming experience.
Once you have the audience sorted out....then perhaps you might end up with the debate between PS3 and 360. At a broad level, PS3 and 360 have similar capabilities however I would suggest PS3 if the cost is not a factor (360 is certainly cheaper than PS3). for the following reasons....
The Wii is an inferior system to the Xbox360 and PS3. What do you think?
The Xbox right now is the dominant system next to the Wii. The PS3 flopped big time from lack of availability and hardware issues. That CPU Processing Chip might be a huge amount of power and energy, but it is worthless if the majority of them have issues and are messing up. Not to mention the playback for PS2 and 1 games not working properly. 500 and 600 dollar price tag really turns people off big time especially for the bad launch games they had. Resistance was the only game that made high scores and worth buying. But 600 dollars for one 60 dollar game isn't going to sway someone to buy the system yet.
The Xbox 360 is doing mighty well, the Wii is doing surprisingly well and has made a huge hit especially for releasing the new Zelda for launch games. The PS3 needs to get their act together and not be afraid to spend a little money to fix their systems up and let them perform their true power and release out more to the public.
Reply:I couldn't give a rats about the power! I want to play games! And the Wii delivers in respect to awesomeness and innovation! That is why Nintendo are owning and Sony and Microsoft have to "borrow" ideas from them! For Example, motion sensors in the contorllers! Of course The Wii also is way cheaper! I am 18 and that age thing you mentioned... load of tripe!
Reply:gaming is in the eye of the beholder...............
Reply:The Wii is designed for anybody, literally anyone can play it and enjoy it.
Nintendo have focused more on gameplay which makes the Xbox360 in a way; inferior to the Nintendo Wii.
It depends which areas you look at and what style a gamer you are.
If you like in-depth games with intense, amazing graphics, and realistic sounds when you walk leaves crackle and crunch, twigs snap and that mark is permenantly scarred on the game's interface. Games where each snowflake is different and no two raindrops are ever the same? Games where you play in 12.1 surround sound? Then get something like an Xbox360 or even a Playstation3.
But!
If you like games that are focused on the gaming expirience so much that you feel like you are in the game, where you are off the edge of your seat crouching on the floor as bullets fly past your head and you can really experience the game first hand, where you can buy pretty much any game and know it will be a fun, worthful experience for any agegroup/type of person... Get a Wii.
I got a Wii for Christmas, and I can honestly say it is the best games console that I have ever played (My reasons are above). But hey, it depends on what type a gamer you are, and what type of games you enjoy!
Good luck in making your decision, but I would go with Wii!
Reply:http://www.mobdesk.tk
Reply:This question is a matter of opinion. The Playstation 3 is by far the best system regarding power and graphics. However, is it the best just because it is the most powerfull is a different question. The Wii is only 250 dollars as opposed to the PS3 basic model for 500 dollars. Also, the Wii is more geared to fun with the whole family allowing everyone to get involved because the controller is completely responsive to the users motion. "Wii can all play together." Although this is a very compelling argument to by the Wii, Playstation 3 reaches a more mature audience with game titles geared at an older age group. The PS3 was a development over the past ten years and has revolutionalized the way video games will look and operate. One other aspect the PS3 holds over the Wii is that it plays Blu-Ray discs. If your looking to build up your entertainment center, the PS3 might not be a bad place to start. Otherwise, if its pure fun and less cost, the Wii is for you.
Reply:PS3 is a nice all in one package with the Blu-Ray playback.
Reply:dude i have all three systems there cool man
Please advice?
I needed advice in the following topics :
1: Assume that you have been invited to give a short talk on how to succeed in job interviews.Your target audience is a group of young school leavers who are looking for jobs.You plan to cover only a small number of important points to note when they attend job interviews.
2: Assume that the principal of your secondary school is inviting alumni to give short talks to students who are about to take a public examination about how to overcome exam pressure.You have accepted the invitation to give a talk and wish to make it persuasive.
Furthermore,any comment if somebody told you that Talking freely to English native- speakers is a more effective way to learn English than attending English lessons in classrooms.
Thank you in advance.
Please advice?
Why did you accept if you can't do the speeches on your own merit. Do you really think the advice you would get on here is going to consrtructive? Your sad.
Reply:Ok, I assume that you have chosen to accept these talks because you feel that you can offer your audience something out of it, and that it is something you feel relatively strongly about?
The only way to give any kind of presentation is to make it enjoyable for others to attend. You really are an entertainer. If you stand at the front and just drone on, no matter how informative your content, they will not listen. You have got to find a way of keeping their interest.
Try to make it amusing in places or get them to participate in some way. Maybe even use the impact of failure and it's consequences.
You want them to leave with the bullet points you made which you feel are important.
Think back to your school days, or college, university etc and think about how different your teachers got you to retain knowledge.
Everyone has their own style.
Good luck :-)
Reply:I assume that these are tasks set by tutor
1.Start with intro about the topic
Tell them to think in advance of what are their strengths and weaknesses and any good reason why they are applying for the job.They must have done a little research about the firm they are aiming to join and know what the job entails.
Stress importance of punctuality, clean and tidy appearance, suitable clothing (opportunity for a joke here, such as not wear a clown outfit).
Politeness
Give them the followimg advice:
Answer questions briefly and to the point.Develop when asked to do so. Do not voice extreme views. Show ability to get on with others, and explain why you think you would be good in that job.
Do not show off and brag, or lie. Be yourself and show you are comfortable in your shoes.
At end of interview you will probably be asked if you have any questions. If so, that is when to ask what you did not understand over terms of service etc...
2.Again. Intro. Introduce yourself. Explain why you have come.
Explain the importance of formal qualifications in your job.
Tell them how to approach them: enough sleep. Eat properly.
Set a programme of revision in advance to cover essential aspects of subject. Chill!
With regard to the question about effective way of learning;
Yes,learning languages in their proper context is very effective provided you mix with the natives and communicate, but you do need a few basics learnt in class to get going, and formal lessons help you to grasp grammatical structures and use them correctly.
I hope this sets you thinking. Add your own ideas.
Reply:I would only like to endorse what "crapsake" (which is not a good
pseudo name for his level of common sense; forgive this comment)
wrote above, so if nothing better comes up, give him the
10 points because, in my opinion, he has hit the nail on the head,
Cheers to you CS.
Reply:Oh my goodness, is that the time. I have to dash, sorry.
Reply:Yawn!
1: Assume that you have been invited to give a short talk on how to succeed in job interviews.Your target audience is a group of young school leavers who are looking for jobs.You plan to cover only a small number of important points to note when they attend job interviews.
2: Assume that the principal of your secondary school is inviting alumni to give short talks to students who are about to take a public examination about how to overcome exam pressure.You have accepted the invitation to give a talk and wish to make it persuasive.
Furthermore,any comment if somebody told you that Talking freely to English native- speakers is a more effective way to learn English than attending English lessons in classrooms.
Thank you in advance.
Please advice?
Why did you accept if you can't do the speeches on your own merit. Do you really think the advice you would get on here is going to consrtructive? Your sad.
Reply:Ok, I assume that you have chosen to accept these talks because you feel that you can offer your audience something out of it, and that it is something you feel relatively strongly about?
The only way to give any kind of presentation is to make it enjoyable for others to attend. You really are an entertainer. If you stand at the front and just drone on, no matter how informative your content, they will not listen. You have got to find a way of keeping their interest.
Try to make it amusing in places or get them to participate in some way. Maybe even use the impact of failure and it's consequences.
You want them to leave with the bullet points you made which you feel are important.
Think back to your school days, or college, university etc and think about how different your teachers got you to retain knowledge.
Everyone has their own style.
Good luck :-)
Reply:I assume that these are tasks set by tutor
1.Start with intro about the topic
Tell them to think in advance of what are their strengths and weaknesses and any good reason why they are applying for the job.They must have done a little research about the firm they are aiming to join and know what the job entails.
Stress importance of punctuality, clean and tidy appearance, suitable clothing (opportunity for a joke here, such as not wear a clown outfit).
Politeness
Give them the followimg advice:
Answer questions briefly and to the point.Develop when asked to do so. Do not voice extreme views. Show ability to get on with others, and explain why you think you would be good in that job.
Do not show off and brag, or lie. Be yourself and show you are comfortable in your shoes.
At end of interview you will probably be asked if you have any questions. If so, that is when to ask what you did not understand over terms of service etc...
2.Again. Intro. Introduce yourself. Explain why you have come.
Explain the importance of formal qualifications in your job.
Tell them how to approach them: enough sleep. Eat properly.
Set a programme of revision in advance to cover essential aspects of subject. Chill!
With regard to the question about effective way of learning;
Yes,learning languages in their proper context is very effective provided you mix with the natives and communicate, but you do need a few basics learnt in class to get going, and formal lessons help you to grasp grammatical structures and use them correctly.
I hope this sets you thinking. Add your own ideas.
Reply:I would only like to endorse what "crapsake" (which is not a good
pseudo name for his level of common sense; forgive this comment)
wrote above, so if nothing better comes up, give him the
10 points because, in my opinion, he has hit the nail on the head,
Cheers to you CS.
Reply:Oh my goodness, is that the time. I have to dash, sorry.
Reply:Yawn!
Whats the most important physical feature down the line?
probably the wrong audience, most of you are young. but if i were thinking of settling down... how can i settle on just 1 woman's body type? i dont want to cheat on my wife. sure, it wont matter in 30 years what she looks like, but it will make a difference till then. lets say its between a girl with a beautiful face but tiny boobs, a girl with big boobs and an ok face, and girl with pretty good everything but really short. who would you pick? and yes other things are more important than physical, but help me out.
Whats the most important physical feature down the line?
Why are you basing whether you will be faithful on her body type?
Don't you think that's a bit shallow?
You should be more concerned with her personality, because after the looks fade (and they ultimately will), you will still have to like her as a friend and mate.
Reply:I could not force myself to settle down with somebody I'm not truly attracted to.
I do not believe in these "she has x, but not y" instances, I know this isn't true, I have seen the world out there.
But, for me personally, I will go for the woman who has everything I like.
If there's something I don't like, then she isn't for me.
It's not perfection, it's standards.
Whats the most important physical feature down the line?
Why are you basing whether you will be faithful on her body type?
Don't you think that's a bit shallow?
You should be more concerned with her personality, because after the looks fade (and they ultimately will), you will still have to like her as a friend and mate.
Reply:I could not force myself to settle down with somebody I'm not truly attracted to.
I do not believe in these "she has x, but not y" instances, I know this isn't true, I have seen the world out there.
But, for me personally, I will go for the woman who has everything I like.
If there's something I don't like, then she isn't for me.
It's not perfection, it's standards.
Are there any Adult Twilight Fans in the Philadelphia Area?
I wanted to start a Stephenie Meyer (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and the upcoming Host) fan club in Philly..for adults. I know that the "target" audience for these books is young adult, but I just know that I cannot be the only adult woman that loves them! Anyone with me?
Are there any Adult Twilight Fans in the Philadelphia Area?
Iam so with you. I'm a philly native who has been trying to get her friends into reading to book. No such luck. Glad I'm not the only adult from philly who likes the books.
Reply:I love them, too, just not in the Philly area. sorry.
Reply:A lot of people really like these books... personally, I hate them. Sorry, just thought I'd leave my two cents.
Anyways, since they are so popular, I doubt you are the only grown woman to love them. Good luck!
dental work
Are there any Adult Twilight Fans in the Philadelphia Area?
Iam so with you. I'm a philly native who has been trying to get her friends into reading to book. No such luck. Glad I'm not the only adult from philly who likes the books.
Reply:I love them, too, just not in the Philly area. sorry.
Reply:A lot of people really like these books... personally, I hate them. Sorry, just thought I'd leave my two cents.
Anyways, since they are so popular, I doubt you are the only grown woman to love them. Good luck!
dental work
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