Page 281 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIVITy 4.2
continued
Understanding the Complexity of Humor
Audience
Often Likes
Young children
Slapstick, or silly physical humor
Elementary-school children
Puns, simple jokes that play off the sound rather than the meaning of a word, such as “Lettuce all go to the salad bar”
Teens
Jokes about topics that authority figures would consider rebellious, a way to use humor to deal with nerve-racking subjects
Adults, particularly well-educated ones
Satire, which makes fun of the weaknesses of people and society
literary Terms
Satire is a form of comedy that uses humor, irony, or exaggeration to expose and
criticize issues in society or people’s weaknesses.
Word CoNNeCTIoNs
Roots and Affixes
Superiority has the Latin root super, which means “placed above.” This root is found in many English words, including superb, superlative, supreme, supervise, superintendent, and supernatural.
An incongruity happens
when things do not match
as they are expected to. The word incongruity has the root -congru-, which means “to come together,” “to agree,” or “to “coincide.” The prefix in- means “not” or “without.”
24 Incongruity theory—People laugh when things that are not normally associated with each other are put together. Many comedy duos, from Laurel and Hardy to David Spade and Chris Farley, feature a thin man and a fat man, a visual contrast.
25 People also laugh when there is a difference between what they expect to happen and what actually occurs. They are being led in a certain direction, and then that direction abruptly changes, and the unpredictability makes them laugh. Children see birds all the time without reaction, but if one flies into their classroom through an open window, they will probably explode in giggles.
Got Laughs?
26 What we laugh at changes as we age. Here are some examples.
my Notes
27 Generally, children laugh more than adults. One study found that adults laugh 20 times a day, while children laugh 200 times!
The Secrets of Humor
28 Certain comedic devices turn up again and again in jokes, comic strips, and filmed entertainment—because they succeed.
29 “There were tricks,” said Hiestand of his days writing for The Tonight Show hosted by Johnny Carson, “things you would see, certain things always got laughs.” One of the most popular is often called the rule of threes. That is a pattern in which two nonfunny elements are followed by a third that is funny (yet still makes sense within the context). Many jokes start off with a list of three, such as “A rabbi, a lawyer, and a duck walk into a bar.” As the joke unfolds, the rabbi says something straightforward, then the lawyer does as well, but the duck finishes with something witty or absurd.
30 Three guys were stranded on an island. An antique lamp washed ashore. When the guys touched it, a genie came out. “I’ll grant each of you one wish,” the genie said. The first guy said, “I want to go home,” then disappeared. The second guy said, “I also want to go home,” and he too disappeared. The third man suddenly looked sad. He said, “I want my two friends back to keep me company.”
31 Certain concepts seem to be more amusing than others. If you tell any joke involving an animal, and it doesn’t matter which one you use, think Donald and Daffy. In the LaughLab experiment, scientists determined that the funniest animal is the duck. (It’s not arbitrary that a duck was used in the rule-of-threes joke.)
254 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8
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