2. Origin
Ūmōr : moisture, fluid
Controls human health and emotion
3. What is it?
There are various theories:
Psychological
Spiritual theories
Unexplainable mystery.
4. Ancient opinions
by the dudes from Greece
Plato - “essence of the ridiculous is an
ignorance in the weak”
Aristotle - “ugliness that does not disgust is
fundamental to humour”
5. Superiority theory
A person laughs about misfortunes of
others
We laugh at inferior or ugly individuals
8. Misattribution Theory
“People (are) incapable
of knowing exactly
what it is they find
amusing”
“Humour's function is to
release psychic
energy”
9. Humour as defense mechanism
Overt expression of ideas and feelings that gives
pleasure to others.
10. Do monkey laugh?
Why yes, they do.
The hypothetical
person lacking a
sense of humour
would likely find the
behaviour induced by
humour to be
inexplicable, strange,
or even irrational.
11. The Evolution of Humour
Evolved after the last common ancestor of
humans and ... (the monkeys).
Likely that it evolved after the development of
language.
12. What does Oscar think?
“While laughter is the
best medicine, many
cancer patients prefer
chemotherapy”
13. The four senses of humour
Self-Deprecating Humour
Put-Down Humour
Bonding Humour
Observational Humour
14. You can make people laugh by...
By behaving in an
unusual way
By being in an
unusual place
By being the wrong
size
15. Humour help is here
Suffocate sarcasm
Be frugally funny
Join a friendly neighbourhood
Justify your jokes
Partake in periodic personal putdowns
18. Humour in emoticons
(_!_) = Normal Ass
(__!__) = Big Ass
(!) = Tight Ass
(_?_) = Dumb Ass
(_E=MC2_) = Smart Ass
(_$_) = Rich Ass
19. We may never know which of our ancestors it
was, living in the long ago world of the tribal
hunter gatherer, that first started making jokes and
laughing at them.