Why Is It Funny When Things Go Wrong

August 16, 2019

It may have been an established tried-and-tested joke but for one reason or another it wasn't well received, and it's now obvious that people haven't found it funny. Why does this happen? In this extract from The Sacred Art of Joking James Cary talks us through the many reasons why jokes can sometimes misfire.

---

You know a joke has gone wrong when, after telling it, the joker feels obliged to say 'Get it?' This is normally accompanied by a forced grin. It's painful to watch. It's obvious we didn't get the joke. It misfired. The question is: why?

It may have been an established tried-and-tested joke but told incorrectly. Maybe the joker said, 'Why did the tennis player wear two pairs of trousers?' That's not going to work, is it? It has to be a golfer. We've all winced as friends in the pub and relatives round the dinner table make a mess of a perfectly decent joke. Everyone's wanting it to work, but it gets muddled and key information is omitted.

The error is corrected but it's too late. It's all been ruined and people look anxiously into their glasses or offer more cauliflower. The joke can't be retold. The surprise of the punchline has gone. It was a damp squib. And we hope that someone can pipe up with a new joke to restore the equilibrium of the universe.

Incomplete information
Another likely problem is that the joke was told correctly but the listener has never heard of the expression 'hole in one'. He or she knows nothing about golf and has incomplete know- ledge, and so 'doesn't get it'. This is common with children, whose experience of the world is slight. They haven't had long enough to gather much information or have some prejudices firmly entrenched.

There is a very old and pleasing joke that runs as follows: 'When is a door not a door? When it's ajar.' Unless you know the word 'ajar' means 'slightly open', that joke will be baffling. That said, it has the rhythm of a joke, so a child might instinctively guffaw before saying 'I don't get it.'

In my house when I was growing up, if anyone used to say, 'It's a matter of opinion', my mother would usually chime in with the punchline: 'Said the man with a wooden leg'. She would explain that a pinion is some kind of rod or pin. I have never used this word in adult life but it does technically exist. And so the joke is technically funny. But it never made me laugh as a child. The only thing that I did enjoy was that my mother persisted with the joke for many years, at which point it became a different kind of joke about persistence with a joke that will never be funny to the listener.

Bisons and basins
Another reason for a punchline failure is questionable incongruity. A pun relies on one word sounding like another but the two having different meanings. But if it doesn't really sound that similar to begin with, the joke is weak. There's an old joke that runs:

What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your hands in a buffalo.

I did warn you. It's a groaner because it depends on the similarity of the words 'bison' and 'basin'. They don't really sound that similar in most English dialects so it's a very weak joke. It might be slightly funnier in Birmingham, where 'bison' sounds more like 'basin'. But only slightly.

You had to be there
Sometimes you try to explain a funny moment to someone, perhaps a calamity at the office which made everyone laugh. But in the explanation it doesn't seem so funny any more. In those situations, you might bail out on the story with the excuse 'You had to be there'.

This phenomenon illustrates the complexities of jokes rather well. In the moment the original hilarious calamity happened, a few things took place at once. Those who witnessed them put together the incongruity in their minds very quickly, and it was hilarious. Later, when you try to piece it all back together, you find it impossible to recreate and convey the complex factors that collided in such a way as to make it funny to someone who wasn't there. You really did have to be there.

Jokes are fickle friends. They promise much and yet they turn out to be very hard to get right. We can understand why it's often said that in learning a language the last thing you learn is the humour. Unless you have mastered the language or the customs or assumptions of that culture, you will struggle to 'get it'.

What makes things even worse is that sometimes the joke doesn't go wrong, but right. But it still has a negative reaction. We will look at that next.

This extract has been taken from James Cary's The Sacred Art of Joking.

This entertaining, breezy book, explains how comedy works (with jokes and quotes) and gives much-needed insights into the controversy surrounding humour.

Order your copy here >>

millerforeweet1975.blogspot.com

Source: https://spckpublishing.co.uk/blog/how-jokes-go-wrong.html