No animal but man ever laughs (Aristotle)

Human beings never understand how anthropomorphic they are. (Goethe)

Brer Fox said, "You said this was a laughing-place."

"I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact I didn't know that cats could grin." "They all can," said the Duchess; "and most of 'em do." (Carroll 1960:59)

Dogs are said to smile. Faces are carved into pumpkins. In fable, animals are personified and speak. "Brer Fox said, 'You said this was a laughing-place.' 'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact I didn't know that cats could grin.' 'They all can,' said the Duchess; 'and most of 'em do.'" (Carroll 1960:59)

We speak of "unfriendly towns, "a cat's "desires," and we give inanimate things gender. In German, nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. "Love" (Die Liebe) is of the feminine gender, anger (Der Zorn) is masculine. The "State" is often personified as an organism. "Pathetic fallacy" refers to giving animals the feelings and emotions of a human. To animate things is also to emotify. One may also "dehumanize," or make what is animate or human, more inanimate and less human, e.g. "That clerk barks at everyone." "Depersonalization" is "identification" with objects or loss of identity or sense of self. A child schizophrenic often cannot distinguish between the animate and inanimate and has a disturbed body image such that she may not know where her feet are.

"The jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence" (Carroll 1960: 103).

Behaviorism and psychological experiments personify when they apply the behavior of rats or animals to the behavior of humans. Julian Huxley (1940) also pointed out that relating humans to speechless animals is misleading. Personification is a kind of category-mistake. Freud personifies mental events such as id, ego and superego.

No account of personification is complete without mention of the personifications of Walt Disney. Alice of Alice in Wonderland finds herself in a new and strange world. Animals are able to talk there, but what rules apply to their conversing? Alice tries addressing a Mouse with "O Mouse" because she remembered having seen declined in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse -of a mouse-to a mouse-a mouse-O mouse!" The Mouse just looked back at her inquisitively. In a dream, time is distorted and Alice, in spite of her good knowledge of history, thought the Mouse may have come over with William the Conqueror and that it therefore must speak French. Alice talks to the Mouse as if it were a person. She talks of her soft, nice cat, Dinah, and how it chases mice. Alice has forgotten that the normal rules of conversation do not apply, but still is not sure what rules would apply either. Should one talk of one's pets or even speak a different language here in this wonderland? Alice called the Mouse back noticing that its face was pale with passion. And of course that is strange, although not because cats eat mice. What would a pale mouse's face look like, and what would passion be for a mouse? Metaphor makes human personality seem similar to that of animals and plants-the beast and straw in humans. If we only regard animism as a metaphor or model for certain purposes, the same object may be regarded as either animate or inanimate. Some biological entities are similarly treated. They are "on the brink." A human being is so many inanimate atoms in motion, but also it may be seen as an animate biological organism. Bloomfield (1963) and John Aikin (1811) give extensive and detailed methods of personifying abstractions. Aikin says that personification gives the highest exercise of the imagination. Chapin (1955:in MB:71) wrote that the personification type of metaphor: "Gives truly imaginative expression to elements of thought and feeling which reflect that firm sense of actuality which is to be accounted one of the 'central virtues of the civilized mind.'"

The tribal trickster identifies with certain animals, e.g. assumes qualities of a rabbit. He (or she?) is sometimes thought to be able to transform into any animal. (Apte 1985:212)

Put yourself in a cat's shoes. What would she care? Do cats think it odd that we watch television while we could be instead just look at a corner of the room for hours as they do? His cat was so thirsty it dipped its tail into the coke bottle and sucked the end. Scientist: In combining with other atoms, the atoms of an element "strive to attain" the stable arrangement of electrons that characterizes the inert atoms of the elements of Group 0. Today the weather will be temperamental. The full vengeance of the law. We are chemical, our cells speak. Can fish see the snow? Cat logic. Tell cats to behave. Woman in the moon. "Words are living things." (Carlyle) It's enough to make a cat laugh. The ant was nervous. Alice (Alice in Wonderland) tries to convince the pigeon of her real nature. Well, who could convince a pigeon of anything? (Carroll 1960:53)

"What would you say to a glass of milk?" "Depends what the glass of milk says to me first."

Several German personifications: Das Karnickel hat angefangen, "The rabbit did it." Kilometerfresser, (lit. "Kilometer glutton.") or Strassenschwein (lit. road swine) "Road hog." Glückspitz, (lit. "lucky mushroom.") "Lucky person."

There is a special kind of joke called "shaggy dog" jokes. They are not just about shaggy dogs. And nothing is shaggy. In fact, they usually have nothing to do with shaggy dogs. We could call them shaggy Brer Rabbit jokes just as well. For example, a horse goes into a restaurant and asks for milk and catsup. He says, "I suppose you think it strange that a horse comes in here and asks for that?" The waiter replies: "No, I like milk that way myself." The waiter misses the point here. The strange thing is that the horse talks at all. Shaggy dog jokes are usually jokes like this. They miss the point that animals do not talk or act as people do. Thus, these are basically personification jokes. Also they are like practical jokes because the listener expects a genuine solution, but is often given instead an absurd solution or pointless joke. Similarly, anti-humor is the intentional violation of the expectation of a joke, which turns out not to be one. (cf. anti-humor under defeated expectation humor) All the ingredients of a joke are clearly there and one is led to expect a punch line, but it is does not come, or is somehow defeated.

Shaggy dog jokes also use other types of humor. For example, they may: a) have a pointless punch line, b) have an irrelevant punch line, c) be based on ignorance about animals' qualities or abilities, d) be absurd, e) tell of impossible events, f) be long and drawn out with an absurd ending (usually told in a serious way), g) be illogical. The conclusion or solution may not follow, h) present the unexpected, i) be a trick, hoax, or put on. We can also substitute people for animals in "miss the point" jokes and some other types of shaggy dog jokes. Some examples of different types of shaggy dog humor are the following:

ambiguity. 1. A kangaroo said, "I haven't been feeling jumpy lately." 2. Brer Hare liked to catch mice and hit them on the head. A magician said he had better stop that, or the hare would be changed into a goon. The hare kept doing it, and was changed into a goon. The moral is: "Hare today; goon tomorrow."

context deviation. A dog eats food, plate, and cup, but doesn't eat the handle of the cup. Another dog said, "You are leaving the best part."

contradiction. This arises when an amazing animal can do some human things such as talk. But the animal is blamed for some minor fault, and the amazing ability to talk is overlooked. 1. One horse says to the other, "Hey, look at that, a talking dog." 2. A dog was ticketed while driving, because it couldn't read the road signs. 3. "Your dog seemed to like that movie." "That's funny, because he didn't like the book."

exaggeration. 1. A man in a bar keeps pouring drinks into his pocket. The bartender wants to throw him out. The man offers to fight everyone. A mouse then comes out of his pocket and says, "That goes for your cat too." 2. A dog walks up a wall and across a ceiling. Someone says, "I never saw a dog drink beer like that before."

defeated expectation. A horse pitches, catches and bats in baseball. When asked why it doesn't run when it hits the ball, the horse said, "Whoever heard of a horse running bases?"

A dog sent a telegram reading "Woof," nine times. It was told that it could send another "Woof" for the same price. The dog replied, "But that would be silly."

false cause. A boy has a golden screw in his navel. People ask what it is for. He finally takes it out and his bottom drops off. (pointless, absurd type)

irrelevance. A dog enters a store and the clerk points to a sign that reads, "No dogs allowed." The dog then says, "But, I'm not smoking."

obvious lie. A rat asks a mouse if a certain nest is safe. The mouse says it is. The rat is caught by a cat, and says to the mouse, "I thought you said it was safe." The mouse replied, "Don't listen to me. I lie a lot." A mouse caught in a vat of beer promises a cat it can eat the mouse if the cat will save him. After being saved, the mouse runs off saying, "Don't believe what I said before; I was drunk."

take metaphor literally. A baby bull was going for a long walk with its parents. But soon the parents became tired while the baby bull wanted to go on. The moral is: "A little bull goes a long way." A fly ate too much baloney. It then walked up the handle of a shovel. When it tried to fly off, it fell to the ground. The moral is: "Don't fly off the handle when you're full of baloney."

miss the point. 1. A pilot says it is quite unusual, but he saw the same shaggy dog at several different airports hundreds of miles apart. His companion replies irrelevantly, "Oh, it's not so shaggy." 2. "You know, a horse came in and ordered ice cream and lemon juice!" "How it can stand that combination is beyond me." 3. A horse complains about its feet. The owner says to a friend, "There's nothing really wrong with them." 4. A horse tries to tell the owner how to start a stalled car. The owner laughs and says to a friend, "It doesn't know anything about cars." 5. A dog cycles to a supermarket and brings back groceries. It is then blamed for forgetting the lettuce.

name-calling. A man is surprised to find a horse tending bar. He asks, "What happened to the cow that used to run the place?"

nonsense (absurd or no point story) One hippo says to the other, "I don't know why, but it has seemed like Thursday all day to me."

personification. One fish asks another, "You're not a Pisces are you?" One bull asks another, "You're not a Taurus are you?"

pretense. A man says he has a cat to eat the mice his friend keeps dreaming of. The man protested, "But the mice aren't real." The other responded, "Neither is my cat."

reversal. Two cells live in separate parts of the blood stream of a horse. When they get together they die. The moral is: "Don't change streams in the middle of a horse."

substitution. One flea said to the other, "Shall we walk or take a dog?"

It is only the dull who like practical jokes. (Oscar Wilde)

Brer Rabbit played a practical joke on Brer Fox. He led Brer Fox to believe there was a laughing-place, got him to run like a mad fool through some bushes, and led him to bump his head on a beehive. "Practical" refers to an activity, a course of action that is purposive, or useful. "Joke" is something lacking substance or genuineness. "Practical joke" refers to one's seeming to defeat someone from a goal, but then showing that the failure is only apparent, not real. One thinks one's watch is stolen, but a friend then produces the watch after having hid it. The victim foresees virtual failure and is surprised to find there is none. There is defeated expectation.

Practical joke is a deliberate way of inducing an emotion. One is purposely given fear so as to induce the pleasant release of removing the cause of that fear. Some would rather not be so affected. It seems unnecessary. And this demonstrates that negative emotions are not desirable. In children, however, practical jokes seem to be desirable. Perhaps this may be because children are often more accepting of their environment, fail to see the dangers, and because of their great desire for physical activity. Practical jokes are often behavioral and perceptual jokes.

A verbal form of practical joke is to make a purposely-false statement so as to deceive. It is put on, or pretense. The deception is then revealed as such. There is no practical joke if there is unrevealed deception. One may give an entire lecture on a new type of electricity supposedly just discovered, and elaborate on its revolutionary properties. For example, it can be held in one's hand, is created from controlling mass and heat to yield liquid electricity, etc. The story must sound plausible. Afterwards, when the audience is convinced, reveal that it is a put on (or offer it for sale). This may be done by exaggerating the model or reducing it to absurdity. For example, the electricity can only be found in chocolate, or it can be drunk as a milkshake. Ironically, in science, some seemingly absurd things do turn out to be true.

Put on, or pretense, works especially well with the uninformed, and so is a type of ignorance humor as well as a type of insight humor. The average scientist never having read about the philosophy of science still believes that there is energy, space and time as such. (In the philosophy of science it is argued, for example, that "energy" is a pseudoscientific term.) Practical joke insight humor tends to help make people more critical and careful in their thinking. It is a type of scientific and philosophical counseling provocation therapy. People can thereby examine more carefully what they are told, and become more circumspect about their possessions and actions. The put on is an excellent device to use in education. It arouses the emotions and secures student involvement in critical thinking. It also produces the positive emotions of humor as an additional reward. For these reasons Oscar Wilde is mistaken in asserting, "It is only the dull who like practical jokes." Oh, Oscar, Oscar.

"Teasing" refers to purposely tantalizing someone. The origin of the word is from "tea" and "to sing." Well, I suppose that is not really true. It is false etymology. It is a tease. But the literature is full of such false etymologies. The victim must know that the intention is not malicious. If teasing and practical jokes are meant merely to hurt, it is no longer humor, but obnoxious, dysfunctional, or psychotic behavior. One way of identifying personality deviation and abnormal behavior is by observing that one tends to engage frequently in practical jokes and that the jokes go too far. It goes too far to tell someone that one's father has died, and later reveal that it is not true. So also is pouring sugar in a gas tank. Genuine harm and damage is done. Failing to grasp that it is slaughter, the American president, Reagan, "teased" off microphone that the war will begin in five minutes. Practical joke is a device by which one can purposely cause pain without really causing it, do the unacceptable acceptably. It is an almost socially acceptable way of being good-humoredly hostile and aggressive. As such, it can become a defense mechanism or way of expressing hostility, rather than humor. Teasing, mischief and practical jokes should be too hurtful, and so they often deal with the trivial. In insight practical joke, or put on, one deals with significant beliefs, but the critiques are corrected before harm is caused by them. Basically, practical jokes require that we accept them. We may accept them more readily from a friend than a stranger. We must know that the people intend no harm when they seem to be purposely thwarting our plans and actions. On the other hand, a stranger may be able to "put us on" more easily, because we tend to take strangers seriously.

Several types of practical joke emerge:

1) Corrected verbal put on. The word, "joke," derives from "to say" or "to implore." It is especially useful in insight humor and education.

2) Corrected threat of adversity (e.g. apparent theft) by trick or deceit. Often involves action, so could called "practical jest" or "prank."

3) Actual annoyance about a trivial matter. Teasing. It is a deviation for a friend to do real harm in an unfriendly way. One pretends to do so. Teasing thresholds of people reveal how tense and accepting they are, or reveal their attitude toward teasing generally. It depends on our understanding of intentions, our desires, as well as our fears. If we know a person likes teasing we may tend to tease that person.

One may tend not to enjoy teasing or practical jokes which are at the expense of another person. We can induce humor without having to induce pain. Someone who likes to engage in practical jokes may be frustrated and need to harm others. He or she may feel superior or good when others are hurt. One may have been surrounded by people who use and enjoy this type of humor and have just picked up the technique. Once we become aware that practical jokes may be abusive, we may decide not to use them. Our humor may become more humanistic. Yet, practical jokes may be a powerful and persuasive tool, if used constructively. Masochism and sadism involve enjoying doing harm to oneself or to another, respectively. Both seem to involve pleasurable pain, and so seem to be contradictory. They need not be contradictory. If we have the assessment that we did something wrong and need to be punished, masochism may be irrationally enjoyable. Sadism may be irrationally enjoyed just as revenge is enjoyed as being one of the most sought after emotions of the average person. We may feel that people have been hurtful to us, so we will be hurtful to them in return. Masochism and sadism must be looked for in some practical jokes. A practical joke may be funny, yet sad.

Put your finger in a newly made pie. Put a rooster in the house. Cook all the groceries the same day so as to always only have leftovers. Put your finger in someone's milk. Purposely make terrible coffee. Send flowers to a sorority with the note "To the prettiest girl in the sorority." "Put rocks in the bed of an obnoxious person." Have you heard the joke about the fool who said, "No"?

Our greatness lies in the supreme illusion. (Nietzsche, in MB:205)

(Carroll TLG 1960:128)

The higher aspects of life are based on noble delusions (Hans Vaihinger 1968, in MB:292)

We fake it. With hypocrisy and pretense one attempts to cover up what one really is. Pretense is also trying to appear to be what one is not, but the pretense need not be covered up. We know novels are fiction and the characters are actors. We know a clown is acting, if not, is regarded as a fool. Pretense involves metaphor. It is to show or say, "X is Y." For example: The world is atomic. Humans are Macintosh computers. Life is a holiday. The state is a family. In the cosmetic industry pretense is everything, pretense to be beautiful. Some regard Jesus as a con-artist like tricksters and traditional fools who can supposedly do impossible things. (Boston 1974:126-127)

Did I just lose touch with reality? Then I have succeeded in presenting the concept of pretense. Pretense is fake, fiction, hypothesis, fantasy, make believe, put on, wish fulfillment, masks, roles, masquerade, spoof, telling "tall" stories, deception, legal fiction, assumption, imitation, mimicry, irony. It deals with fairies, elves, spirits and things that never were nor could be. It pageants myth, mysticism and religion. Psychodrama uses humor in the form of pretense or roll-playing. (Titze & Eschenröder. 2000:89-97) Wallace Stevens (1942) said that the poet gives life to "supreme fictions" to which we constantly turn and without which the world could not be conceived. Stutterheim (1941) argues that metaphor is synonymous with such terms as myth, hypostatization, and fiction. Sheridan Baker (1966) regards metaphor as a pretending, or shorthand for as-if. Helen Haworth (1968) regards metaphor as a sort-crossing and pretense-Keats' visions are seen not to be visions or mystical, but mere pretense. There is no second or Platonic world.

Monro (1963) said that one type of humor is anything masquerading as something it is not. Thomas Szasz (1961) says that some mentally ill people, especially the hysteric, can be treated as if he or she were playing games, putting on an act. Behavior is treated as if it were games played. A physical account is rejected. Thomson (1951:336-350) wrote: "It is only required that we should be able to put ourselves [metaphorically or by pretense] in what is…[another's] situation." Samuel Menahem (1976), in his dissertation on role-playing and humor, sees pretense humor as a form of creativity and hypotheses stimulation. Alf Nyman (1922), in a Kantian approach, maintains that metaphor or scientific fictions constitute a conscious deviation from reality in the interest of knowledge. The as-if viewing digresses from reality to get closer to reality in an intuitive synthesis. This is another way of presenting the view that each theory in science, or elsewhere, is a heuristic and insight metaphor.

Much of our language is metaphorical and fictive. Ogden (1959) in Bentham's Theory of Fictions, pointed out that psychological terms are metaphorically derived from words for physical objects. Humor may be created by showing that what we take literally is a disguised joke. Legal terms are often fictions, spoken of "as-if" they refer to objects. Other fictions are: power, right, time, motion, mind, political terms, ideal lines (without thickness), surface (without depth), and virtually every psychological description. He wrote, "To language, then-to language alone-it is that fictitious entities owe their existence; their impossible, yet indispensable existence." (Ogden 1959, MB:210)

But Vaihinger (1968), in The Philosophy of 'As If': A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind, wrote that truth is only expedient error, and noble delusions. He says that humans have a tendency to take their fictions as dogmas. He gives as examples of fictions: Greek mythology, Plato's myths, Kant's "thing-in-itself," religious ideas, Herbart's associationism (of ideas), the mind-body distinction, all mental processes, zero, inertia, infinity, time, schematic drawings, imaginary cases, rhetorical fictions, substance, Aristotle's notion of potential existence, society as an organism, soul, energy, psychic activity, force, cause, ideal mathematical figures, deity, immortality, infinite, perfection, imagination, space without content, points without extension, constant velocity, consciousness in general, self-caused, negative numbers; most of the phrases of social intercourse, such as "Yours truly"; names, social contract, etc. Like Kant, he regards humans as metaphoricians (Metaphoriker). Nietzsche (1960, MB:204) holds a similar view. He said that we do not know things in themselves, but only metaphors, fictions or lies: And what therefore is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms: in short a sum of human relations which became poetically and rhetorically intensified, metaphorphosed, adorned, and after long usage seem to a nation fixed, canonic and binding; truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions; worn-out metaphors which have become powerless to affect the senses. The intentional adherence to illusion in spite of our awareness of it is, Nietzsche says, a kind of "lie in an extra-moral sense." Myths or lies must be used in science as well as in everyday life: To know is merely to work with one's favorite metaphors. To think is to create "pictures." For example, "cause" is a "picture" we read into nature. Both language and "thought" are based on unreal or falsifying operations. Fictions are needed to think through and create theories and hypotheses. Nietzsche calls his philosophy "perspectivism" because all we can have is perspectives, perspective falsifications, and perspective vision: The most erroneous assumptions are precisely the most indispensable for us. Still many fictions are unintelligible and should be exposed as such. We are still continually seduced by words. We distort by simplifying, abstracting, isolating. (MB:204-205) His famous work The Antichrist, attacks all imaginary entities, the religious world of fiction and the dualistic fictions. He presents as fictions most or all of the fictions presented by Vaihinger.

In the above views, pretense, as-if, fiction, model and metaphor come together with the fallacy of taking things literally, category-mistake, naming fallacy, the metaphor-to-myth fallacy, and escape from the rational and usual. Humor is created based on these factors. Much of traditional thinking and language can be seen in this way to be disguised jokes, and so humorous. To create humor, especially insight humor, we need only expose the sorts of fictions presented above.

Pretense and fiction are also seen to be necessary for poetic and aesthetic reasons. Such metaphor integrates with humor because we know they are types of fallacies or distortions. Science fiction is partly heuristic, partly humorous. Santa Claus, gremlins, sprites, goblins, gnomes, dwarfs, and the little people, are fictions which are satisfying, fun, and enjoyable. Fictions can be poetic and aesthetic. Elves are delightful. Pretense and fiction allow, temporarily, all of our wishes to be fulfilled. Insoluble problems can be resolved. We can do and be anything we wish, create any kind of fantasy, myth, or supernatural world we desire. It is what metaphysicians and the religious create and then think it is real. It is like romantic, idealized love. They are views which if taken seriously are false, and if not, humorous. We can create hypothetical solutions, models, and humor by speculating, "What would you do if…?" Pretense creates a counterfactual, or contrary-to-fact condition.

Humorous pretense and fiction come from the basic metaphorical way in which we use language. Humor is not a superficial aspect of experience, but rooted in all of our language use and acting. Socrates humorously pretends to be ignorant (Socratic irony or Socratic method), in order to draw out the fallacies in the usual ways of asserting and arguing. Pretense humor brings out the extensive fictions and fallacies in our views which we take literally. People are balloons blowing about in the wind, children playing with toys.

something that is patent nonsense. (Wittgenstein 1968:#464)

Reduction to absurdity applies to all types of humor because "absurd" is a synonym of "humorous." We may show the absurdity in certain views by using almost any of the techniques for creating each type of humor, for example, juxtaposition, substitution, showing contradiction, exposing hypocrisy, category-mistakes, exaggeration, etc. A paradigm for reduction to absurdity is to show that a theory one holds contradicts one's own beliefs or values. The reduction may involve showing that one's views lead to undesirable consequences. Zeno showed the absurd consequences which follow from holding the view that there is no change. Also, the causes, excuses, or reasons we give for events are often ludicrous because frequently wrong. One general paradigm for reduction to absurdity is: "You believe something, but if you consider this argument or statement, it will contradict or make your value or belief unintelligible." If you accept the contradiction, it leads to humor and a change of belief. If you do not accept it, it creates defensiveness, and anger.

For example, if the future is always becoming the past, how can there ever be a present? This is called the fallacy of the "specious present." If the past is inaccessible, then we can never be sure there "was" any. We can never have a past image to ascertain if a present image is of the past. Thus, historians only study the present, and memory is only a present experience -that is, if there were a present.

I wasted time, and now time wastes me. (Shakespeare Richard II 5.5.49)

Humorists are serious. They are the only people who are. Mark Van Doren

This is a technique of inverting or reversing beliefs, roles, sentences, situations, values, cause and effect, expectations, etc. See also the discussion in the section on the "Deviation from Usual role." Transposition of two or more sounds or words is called a "spoonerism." [After William Spooner (1844-1930), British cleric and scholar.] For example, "tons of soil" for "sons of toil." It is a clever transposition especially if the reversed statement is an elucidating commentary on the original sentence. We expect, by reversing a sentence, that the opposite of the truth, nonsense, will be produced. Either way, the result can be humorous.

The reversal may make surprisingly good sense. For example, "Humor need not involve laughter, and laughter need not involve humor." We may also compare reversal to contradiction humor. "Nothing comes from something," may make more sense than, "The world was created from nothing." We must ask what the reverse of a view is like. It may make no difference, or be truer than the original statement. "I wasted time, and now time wastes me." (Shakespeare Richard II 5.5.49) Milner (1972:16) treats reversals, especially reversals of the linguistic aspects of universes of discourse, as the foundation of humor: "The process of reversal may be central to our perception and this may account for the fact that a very large number of phenomena that trigger off laughter can be shown to be due to reversal of one kind or another." (cf. Apter 1985, 1989, 2001)

1. The use of humor requires acceptance and so one's negative emotions are undermined. Also, if one accepts what one fears then the fear vanishes.

2. We begin to realize that we must accept the actual reality of the situation. If we face our fear and reality, and learn to laugh at it, we can begin to accept and cope with it.

3. Doing what one fears is often not as bad as we think it is.

4. It reframes our thinking. We are allowed to do something which we would not ordinarily do, and so it strikes us as strange or humorous and helps us to reframe our thinking. We break our previous patterns of "thinking" and acting.

5. One sees that one has control over the situation again.

6. If the compulsion is intensified, it may just grow too wearisome to continue it. Bad behavior is blown up to the ridiculous or humorous level.

7. One may begin to realize that there was not much reason for performing a compulsive act in the first place.

8. The very act of reversing allows one to be less enculturated, less settled (in one's ideas Zwangsidee) and restricted in one's behavior. Humor allows us to deviate from previous beliefs.

9. One begins to realize that one is not and should not expect to be perfect, e.g. if one works, one will make mistakes.

10. We realize that we can do what we thought we could not do.

11. One trick of paradoxical intention is to laugh away pseudo-problems.

12. Humor gives us insight and serves as an argument.

13. Humor eases tension and gives needed pleasure.

14. Humor allows us to distance ourselves from painful situations.

15. Humor allows us not to take ourselves so seriously, to laugh acceptingly at ourselves.

16. Humor itself gives us needed meaning in life and a goal. Facing our fears such as death helps us to give more meaningful priorities to our lives and determine what is genuinely important. People are often upset with trivial thing.

17. Humor helps show the absurdity of one's irrational behavior.

18. By using the exaggeration method, defenses against changing behavior are undermined.

19. It helps one give up catastrophizing or negativizing. Forced catastrophies can eliminate the fear.

20. As in reverse psychology, telling one to do one thing can make one do the reverse.

21. Provocation Therapy is also an example of free association humor to attempt reframe one's thinking.

Black humor literature, e.g. of Ionesco, is a reversal of social norms, rules rationality, literary forms, etc. See section on Black Humor under Value Deviation Humor for further analysis. Apte (1985:156-157) refers to societal, ritual humor which reverses the usual practices of the society in question. Arapahoe clowns groan under the weight of a light load. The witches of the Kaguru dance upside down; in the Toraja land of the dead everything is the reverse of what it is in the world, even words have the opposite of their usual meaning or are even pronounced backwards. There is role reversal and ritual rebellion. (Babcock1978:27) Such reversals supposedly give us release and Spielraum [free play]. (32) In the medieval Feast of Fools comoners and priests mocked the rituals of the church.

Apter (2001) presents what he calls reversal theory. According to this theory, all humor involves a reversal in that two mutually exclusive things are seen as momentarily identical, a paradoxical sameness (called "synergy'). A playful attitude ("paratelic" or nonpurposive) resolves the incongruity and tension. This could also be a description of how metaphor works: it is initially absurd until one can understand it and figure it out.

The March Hare in Alice says, "'Then you should say what you mean.' 'I do,' Alice hastily replied, 'at least-at least I mean what I say-that's the same thing, you know.' 'Not the same thing a bit,' said the Hatter. 'Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see.'" (Carroll 1960:67)

In Alice "Do cats eat bats?" and "Do bats eat cats?" become interchangeable because Alice cannot answer either one. (Carroll 1960:19)

The trouble with Canada is that for several days a year you have to switch all around into summer clothes.

"Republicans...take care of the big money, for the big money takes care of them." (Will Rogers)

Because the Dormouse is always sleeping, his reversals are both true, that is, "I breathe when I sleep" is the same as "I sleep when I breathe." (Carroll 1960:67)

"'My finger is bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!' 'Have you pricked your finger?' 'I haven't pricked it yet,' the Queen said, 'but I soon shall-oh, oh, oh!'" (Carroll 1960:173)

He spent all his money on women; she spent all her men on money.

In praise of dullness. (See International Dull Folks Ltd.) (Whimsy VI 1988:240-242)

I hate to be interrupted when I am avoiding work.

Kaffee umgekehrt is coffee reversed, meaning more milk than coffee.

Tee martoonies, please.

Witch went to a plastic surgeon to have wart put on her nose.

It is the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong. (Tom Stoppard Arcadia.)

Stop being serious and start joking.

Underwhelmed.

He is the white sheep of the family.

From yeast to Yeates

My friends are always there-when they need me.

'Sum ergo cogito. Is that putting Des-cartes before de-horse?" (Chiaro 1992:13)

"I wasted time and now time wastes me." (Shakespeare Richard II, 5.5.49)

I am a miracle worker. I turn wine into water.

The tail wags the dog.

Wo alle nackt gehen, da lacht man über das Hemd. [Where all go nacked, there one laughs about clothes.]

Man kann die Wahrheit auch mit lachendem Munde sagen. [One can also tell the truth with a laughing mouth.]

Every ending has a beginning.

I am a serious comedian.

Not how do we define humor, but how does humor define us.

Because you want to drop the course, you should stay in it.

You do nothing very well.

We may weep at a birth, or laugh at a funeral. (Chuangtse in Blyth 1959:26)

Wer sich entschuldigt, klagt sich an. [She who excuses herself accuses herself.]

In paradoxical intention therapy they make things better by making them worse.

As we do not have only one, but many selves, we may be altruistic to ourselves.

Humanistic people are anti-robbers. They enter the house and leave new valuables behind.

"Mental processes are just queer." (Wittgenstein 1968:363)

"Numbers are not fundamental entities." (Wittgenstein 1967:#706)

Jim: "Hello Jim, Jane here."

Reading most books is a way to avoid thinking.

You're just being serious.

Don't let your course studies interfere with your education.

Madman: one with fewer cultural obstacles and fantasies in his way.

Be prejudiced against all males equally.

Test for truth: the more a statement deviates from symbolic logic, the truer it is.

Reverse Freud: Womb is symbolic of a room.

She fired a bullet at him, but the bullet saved his life.

Republican: Farewell to welfare.

Victims who victimize themselves.

"What is Tao? Should we try to get it?" "As soon as you try to miss it."

If you don't get everything you want, reflect on the things you don't get that you don't want.

Palindromes: "Madam, I'm Adam," "Able was I ere I saw Elba," "Stressed-Desserts," "deed," "level," or "Mary Belle Byram." "Look cool."

The following example makes use of insight reversal humor:

HOW TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK

Suppose you were to say, "The trouble with me is that I feel so good. How can the cognitive-emotive theory help me to feel lousy"? There are some timeworn methods. First of all: 1. Be irritated and upset that you even have to get up in the morning. 2. Snap irritatedly at those around you expecting them to just understand that you are grouchy when you awaken. 3. Check the news and complain if the weather is bad. If they say it will be nice, doubt the report. 4. Don't allow enough time to get to work, then complain berate yourself and other drivers as you speed to work. 5. On arrival, look at those around you with anxiety and suspicion. Perhaps they have been talking about you. You never know. If you are asked to do something, wonder why you have been singled out. Imagine that you are being harassed, or nagged and victimized by all members of the opposite sex. This is reason enough to be irritable, complain, moan, or whine. Or be silent and let your hostility brew while you plot revenge. Find a chance to spread unflattering gossip about them and others and ridicule them at lunch. Anyone who disagrees with you is out to oppress and hurt you. It is because they are basically mean. Therefore, they should be blamed and punished. Then worry. Perhaps, you could even make a few impossible demands of yourself, or torment yourself about some past event one can no longer do anything about. Well, you are doing well now. Wonder why people are unfriendly and that they only do things out of selfish motives. Even though you are a grouch, they shouldn't be. Scold others if they violate your subjective, private rules. Very soon you will be successful in being miserably angry and ready to have a perfect, massive heart attack.

Quintilian (Instituto Oratoria VI.iii.65)

Jokes can be used in an argument. (Aristotle Rhetoric 3.18, 1419^b3)

Rhetoric is a significant source for humor. This was shown in the previous discussion of metaphor humor. In addition, the informal logical fallacies are listed among the types of rhetoric. A figure is a general term for any striking or unusual configuration of words or phrases. (Lanham 1969, Taylor 1972) It alters normal form. Many of the classifications of humor presented here, such as simile, analogy, allegory, etc. are also rhetorical terms. In the following a number of rhetorical terms are given which may form the basis of humor or are related t o humor.

Rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is the art of discovering the available means of persuasion. Humor is one such means. Rhetoric gives the devices we use in language, its language games, its logic, its mistakes, its positive or negative effect on the audience, its effectiveness, its use in discourse (pragmatics), etc. In each case, something may go wrong, thus if acceptable, generating humor. Emotional responses, praise and blame, mockery and parody, and giving excuses were regarded as rhetorical devices.

Many rhetorical terms describe ungrammatical, illogical or misuses of language (e.g. figure, metaphor, malapropism), others are techniques of argument (e.g. dilemma, analogy), others refer to types of word repetition, others refer to repetitions of sound (e.g. alliteration, assonance), others are metaphorical substitutions (e.g. allegory, parable, metonymy, irony, simile), vices of language (barbarismus), vices of verbosity (tautologia, pleonasmus), types of puns (antanaclasis, paronomasia, syllepsis, zeugma), syntactical disorder (hyperbaton), rhythm of language, omissions, grammar variations, figures of disputation (apoplanesis: evasion by digression), figures of similitude (icon, parable, allegory), causes and effects, pathos (figures of vehemence), ethos (figures of gratitude, commendation), etc.

accumulatio: heap praise or blame. [exaggeration]

acyrologia: malapropism, use inexact/illogical word, incorrect phrase, e.g. "I hope (meant fear) I will be hanged tomorrow."

adianoeta: hidden meaning (e.g. irony, ambiguity). "For your work we have nothing but praise." [cf. fallacy of accent]

adynata: string together impossibilities.

aenigma (enigma): speak in riddles, mystery, obscure speech.

affectation: unnatural or artificial speech or conduct.

agnomination: words of different meaning, but similar sound are brought together. (cf. paranomasia: play on meanings of word ) [cf. alliteration]

aishrologia: join words to convey obscene message.

allegory: disguise subject under suggestive guise of another. Words have double significance. [cf. expanded metaphor]

alliteration: recurrence of initial consonant sound or vowel sound. [cf. assonance]

amara irrisio: sarcasm

amphibologia: ambivalence of grammatical structure, usually by mispronunciation, e.g. "Do you recognize your friend? "No, I just see you."

amplification: expansion of simple statement, e.g. accumulation, antithesis, comparison, example, exclamation, hyperbole, image, paraphrase, repetition, etc.

anacolouthon: syntactical inconsistency, or incoherence in a sentence, e.g. "You really ought-well, do it your own way." Shows switch of emotion.

anageon: excusing an act on grounds that supposedly a person or condition made it necessary.

anagram: transpose letters to create new word or phrase.

anaphora: repetition of word or phrase at beginning of successive clauses, or sentences, e.g. to think that x, to think that y; or this is an x, this is a y, this is...

anastrophe: ("turning back") unusual or backward arrangement of words or clauses in a sentence, e.g. "All Italy about I went." [reversal] Word usually placed first is placed last. Inversion of order, e.g. "People that he had known all his life he really did not know."

anoiconometon: confused words without order.

antanaclasis: Return to a word, but give it new and different meaning. Word play. Repeat word in two different senses, homonymic pun. E.g. "Learn a craft to avoid living by craft."

antanagoge: ameliorate a fault. Balance unfavorable with favorable, e.g. "The good news is..., the bad news is...)

antenantiosis: positive statement made in negative form.

anthimeria: functional shift; one part of speech used for another, e.g. "His complexion is perfect gallows"; "I'll unhair your head." [substitution]

anthypophora: answer one's own questions, e.g. "So is this true?-It is."

anticlimax: Expected heightened effect is instead lowered. [cf. antihero, antihumor, sinking humor, reduction to absurdity]

antimetabole: invert order of repeated words.

antiphrasis: words used in sense opposite to proper meaning, e.g. calling enemy a friend. [cf. irony]

antiptosis: substitute one case for another.

antistasis: repeat word in a different or contradictory sense, e.g. "I wasted time and now time wastes me." (Shakespeare Richard II V, v)

antisthecon: substitute one letter or sound for another in a word.

antistrephon: turn another's arguments to one's own purposes.

antithesis: conjoin contrasting ideas.

antonomasia: description used for proper name, or proper name used for a quality.

apophasis: irony of denying what we actually do or say. Deny all reasons but the one you hold.

apoplanesis: evade issue by digression.

aporia: true or feigned uncertainty about an ascertainable point, e.g. "What do I know about it?"

apostrophe: address absent person or personified abstraction.

argumentum ex concessis: reason from the (e.g. exaggerated) premiss of opponent.

aschematiston: lack or unskillful use of figures of speech.

asiatismus: figurative speech, but is empty, grandiloquent, too ornate.

assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant of adjacent words.

asteismus: mirthful or mocking answer that plays on a word, e.g. fame and shame.

atticism: brief, witty, or epigrammatic style.

auxesis: use exaggeration for proper word. [hyperbole] E.g. call a scratch a wound.

barbarismus: uncultivated speech and pronunciation.

bathos: a commonplace in elevated style. [sinking]

bombast: grandiloquence, pretentious, trite speech, exaggerated style.

brachiologia: defeat expectation by excessive brevity and conciseness.

cacemphaton: sound equivocal, lewd illusion, double entendre, excessive alliteration, excess of like sounds, jarring sound.

cacosistata: badly constructed argument, expand argument to another group or the other side of the argument. E.g. "OK, we need a military, but then we need an even larger department of war prevention and peace corps.

cacosyntheton: misplace words and word order so as not to express intended meaning.

cacozelia: affectation of style, esp. coined speech to appear learned; perverted zeal.

catachresis: wrong word for the context, farfetched or paradoxical metaphor. Improper metaphor. Often good metaphor, e.g. "She spoke daggers to him."

catacosmesis: sinking of order from high or important to low or least important. [sinking humor] "To want to know a lot, to learn a bit, but in the end stick with what you know."

cataplexis: threatening disaster. [mistake or accident humor]

catechresis: name unnamed by things similar, e.g. call an airplane a "large bird in the sky."

categoria: direct, honest accusation. [blatant honesty humor]

ceratinae: dilemma. All possible arguments seem to prove something both true and false.

certitudo: false or subjective assumption of certainty. [dogma humor]

characterismus: irony. turn aside antagonism with a joke; make disagreeable seem agreeable. [A fundamental use of humor.] E.g. (Faulty) description of body or mind. [cf. myth of mind, mind-body problem, problem of self]

charientism: graceful style, express unpleasant in agreeable way. [cf. euphemism] Scoff at threatener, e.g. "Bite not my nose off, I beg you."

chiasmus: (lit. "crossing" such as AB to BA) near repetition in reverse order of terms of a phrase or letter.

chleuasmos: mockery leaving one no reply.

chronographia: description of time, e.g. "Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." (Romeo and Juliet III, v) [cf. personification]

Ciceronian style: full, classical rhetorical style.

circuicio: circuitous speech, circumlocution, maze of arguments. (periphrasis) [cf. miss the point humor]

citros: evoke excessive pity moving one to tears.

climax: humor builds to a punch line [antihumor does so by not doing so] A conclusion of a series of building arguments.

cohortatio: The fallacy of moving hearer to indignation by dwelling on enemy's faults, e.g. to promote patriotism, indoctrinate feminists, or encourage religious belief.

color: metaphors, embellishments of a style, a slanted style.

commoratio: emphasis by repetition in different words, e.g. "He is expelled, cast out, banished." "You emphasize and dwell on it."

commutatio: order of first clause reversed in second.

comprobatio: compliment someone to win his or her confidence. [hypocrisy]

concession: concede a point to prepare for a stronger counterargument, e.g. "I concede that he is deaf-to anything but war." Have fun-but you will pay for it."

congeries: diverse ideas just heaped together. Word heaps, e.g. typical student term paper.

conjugates: Move from one part of speech or ending to another, e.g. John Dewey changes substantive nouns to active gerunds-stress is on the creating of art rather than on the end result; similarly, not humor, but being humorous; to be human does not mean one is humanistic. Humor may not be humorous.

consonance: resemblance of stressed consonant sounds. Also reverse alliteration (terminal consonant similarity). E.g. "Bill will fall on the wall."

continuatio: continued, overlong sentence.

correctio: to correct previous words, or prepare for a view unfavorable to others.

declamatio: elaborate, ornamental, rehearsed speech.

deesis: vehement desire, supplicate.

dehortatio: dissuasion. "Do not go with that man/woman, for everyone else has."

deliberatio: deliberation. Humor arises when it is excessive, or one is unable to deliberate.

delivery of speech: Humor arises when it is done badly.

denumeratio: amplify idea by giving all the details. E.g. "What is surgery but removal of green, slimy flesh, yellow blood, rotting flesh, ....

diabole: prediction or denunciation of future action. Faulty prediction creates humor.

dialogismus: speaking as if another person, counterfeit dialogue.

diaresis: divide one syllable into two, divide subject into its parts.

diasyrmus: ridicule of opponent's argument through base analogy or example. [cf. reduce to absurd]

dicaeologia: confess act, but excuse it by necessity, e.g. "We had to kill a million people in Iraq because of the situation there."

dilemma: argument and counterargument both unacceptable, e.g. liar paradox. Only unacceptable choices offered, e.g. typical choice of two unacceptable presidential candidates.

diminutio: undervalue or underestimate.

dissimulatio: dissimilitude, compare unlike things. Hide under false appearance. [hypocrisy]

donysis: describing or reenacting strong emotions. [cf. behavioral humor, parody, pretending]

effictio: overcomplete itemization of heroin's charm; personal description.

effiguration: elaborate description of object or event (not person).

eidolopeia: present dead person as speaking. [personification, anthropomorphism]

ellipsis: leave out (implied) word. [cf. self-reference humor]

emphasis: to stress, to imply more than stated, e.g. "My man has become a lord of late." (i.e. is difficult and egoistic)

enallage: substitute one grammatical form (case, person, number, gender, tense, mood, part of speech) for another.

encomion: high-flown expression, eulogy.

enigma: riddle or obscure speech.

enthymeme: conclude from truth of contrary. If pacifism is good, it is unacceptable to support military. Argument based on probable or incomplete grounds.

enumeratio: enumeration of causes, effects, adjuncts.

epideictic oratory: to please audience rather than persuade them. To preach.

epimone: dwell on a point. Frequent repetition.

epiplexis: ask a question not to gain information, but to chide and convince, e.g. "Just how long do you expect me to wait here?

epitheton: epithet added to every person's name, such as whether they are good or bad.

epitrochasmus: swift movement from one subject or statement to another, a "free for all."

epitrope: serious or ironical permission given to opponent to do what they wish, but object to the inconvenience of it.

epizeuxis: emphatic, passionate repetition, e.g. "Oh, baby! Oh baby! Oh baby!"

exergasia: repeat something in many words, e.g. "An oft told tale rendered monotonous by repetition."

expeditio: reject all but one alternative argument.

extenuatio: understate, e.g. speak of a "scrap with the law" when , in fact, one was in prison for ten years.

fable: allegorical story with a moral. Characters are often animals.

facetiae: humorous sayings or writings.

fictio: attribute reasonable actions and speech to unreasonable creatures.

graciosa nugatio: pleasant nonsense or jesting.

heterogenium: irrelevant answer or proof to attract attention, e.g. "I ask you of cheese, you tell me of Cheshire."

hirmos: meaning is extended and suspended until completion at end.

homiologia: tedious, redundant style.

homoioteleuton: accentuates rhythm of equal members of its own similar endings, e.g. "He can converse wittily, remember perfectly, write beautifully, and party immediately."

horismus: define negatively, briefly or by its contrary, e.g. "He has a strong voice, but unfortunately not an avoidable one."

hyberbaton: Invented or unusual word order for emphasis, e.g. "This is the kind of impertinence up with which I will not put."

hypallage: awkward or humorous changing of order, agreement or application of words. Metonymy. Reversal. E.g. "I see her voice." [cf.synaesthesia humor]

hyperbaton: departure from normal word order.

hypocrisis: humorous or mocking exaggeration of opponent's speech or actions.

hypophora: raising questions and answering them.

hysteron proteron: disorder or inversion of time sequence.

icon: resemblance by image. [cf. simile, analogy]

illusio: mock, jeer.

intention: use connotation of a term.

inter se pugnantia: point out hypocrisy.

intimation: hinting at something.

inversio: turn opponent's argument against him/her self.

leptologia: subtle speaking, quibbling.

litotes: understatement to enhance one's image. An assumption expressed by negation of the contrary (obversion).

macrologia: long-winded, redundant.

malapropism: vulgar error through attempt to seem learned.

meiosis: belittle, degrading epithet.

metalepsis: effect attributed to a remote sounding cause, metonymical substitution of a word.

metaplasm: transpose letters or syllable in a word from the natural order.

metastasis: turn objections back against those who made them.

metonymy: cause for effect or inverse. Name or attribute is substituted for the thing meant or vice versa. Substitution of connotation or association for the thing, e.g. crown for royalty; "He was addicted to the bottle."

mimesis: imitation of person.

noema: obscure, subtle speech.

occupatio: emphasis by seeming to avoid, e.g. "I will not dwell on the professor's 20 books, 30 journal articles, or his..."

optatio: a wish exclaimed, e.g. "Wow!" or "Ooooh, my!"

palindrome: reversible sentence, e.g. "Lewd did I live, and evil did I dwel(l)."

parable: mystical comparison or juxtaposition. Teach moral by extended metaphor. Something expressed in terms of something else. Enigmatical, mystical saying. Illustration of something to avoid."

paradiastole: putting together dissimilar things; favorable term given to cover unfavorable one; presenting partial truth, e.g. to call a miser thrifty, deceit policy, war peacekeeping, punishment correction, paid killers soldiers, revenge and retaliation justice."

paradigma: resemblance or induction by [humorous] example. Pattern. [metaphor, model]

paradox: contrary to opinion or expectation. Contrary statement shown to be surprisingly true. [cf. defeated expectation humor]

paralepsis: omission. With the pretense to pass over a point, subtly mention it nevertheless and so give it stress, e.g. "Not to mention that...," "to say nothing of...." "I will not say that..."

paralogism: unwitting, faulty reasoning.

paramologia: concede weaker point to strengthen one's own argument.

paramythia: console or diminish sorrow of griever, e.g. "We have seen the worst," "It is all over now."

paranomasia: pun, play on words which sound alike (homonym).

parataxis: place sentence or clauses side by side without connecting words or items. [juxtaposition]

parathesis: parenthetic speech, digress from subject, put something beside. "Ah, but I digress."

parecbasis: deviate from subject, digression.

parechesis: Similar sounds repeated. "The ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom." (Swineburne Nephilidia)

parelcon: add superfluous word.

parenthesis: insert an aside in a sentence interrupting the normal flow.

pareuresis: false pretext, good excuse.

parimion: every word of the sentence begins with the same sound, e.g. "Much money makes many men mighty mad."

paro(no)masia: punning, play on words, e.g. Falstaff: "Were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent." (I Henry IV, I, ii)

parody: imitate writing to make seem humorous or ridiculous.

paromoisis: some sound similarity of words in two clauses, as may be found in poetry.

paromologia: admit many weaknesses of own position.

parrhesia: candid speech. [blatant honesty humor] E.g. "Excuse me for what will be a long and tedious if not dry talk."

pathos or pathopeia: form of persuasion arousing emotions (e.g. humor) in the audience, e.g. by being moved oneself. Emotional appeal of argument (fallacy).

percontatio: rebuke by questioning. Overquestion.

periergia: superfluous elaboration of a point; labored style.

periphrasis: circumlocution, e.g. "He returned home again from whence he came."

peroration: impassioned summary, not just review of previous arguments.

philophrenesis: attempt to mitigate cruelty or anger by gentle speech and humble submission.

pleonasm: needless redundancy, e.g. "I spoke the words with my mouth."

ploce: repetition of a word or name with new significance, e.g. as altered by reading a poem or prose.

poicilogia: awkward, ungrammatical speech.

pointed style: figurative, witty, Senecan style, but with a clarifying point. [insight humor]

polysyndeton: use of many conjunctions, e.g. "He will come here, walk here, drive here, fly here, swim here, or creeps here, but he will be here."

pompous speech

praeoccupatio: to be preoccupied.

praesumptio: presumption.

praeteritio: pretending to overlook a point.

preciosity: use of imagery for its own sake according to a false standard of literary taste.

proclees: provoke adversary by accusation or to justify actions.

prosonomasia: call by nickname.

prosopoeia: imagining or absent person as speaking or acting.

prosopographia: lively description of imaginary person, object, abstraction, or animal as if present. [cf. personification]

proverb: concise statement often metaphorical to express some truth. Enigma.

provocatio: challenge, inciting [cf. provocative therapy humor]

pseudomenos: argument in which adversary is forced to lie, e.g. it is in vary many ways a lie to take the oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me god."

psyma: asking too many questions demanding immediate answer. Rapidly overquestion thereby preventing answers.

rhetorical question: (Erotema) ask question not for answer, but to assert or deny something obliquely.

rhodomontade: boast, arrogance.

Senecan style: curt style.

significatio: innuendo.

solecism: ungrammatical combination of words, e.g. of cases, tenses, gender.

soraismus: affected use and mingling of foreign language for no good reason.

syllepsis: verb governs one word literally and one metaphorically, e.g. "He lost his hat and his temper."

synedoche: the following and reverse of: substitution of part for whole, matter for what made from it, container for contained, cause for effect, before for after, implicit for explicit, disease for cure, hero for villain, etc. E.g. bread for food, roofs for houses, steel for sword, farce for mistake.

systrophe: qualify a term with many phrases, yet without defining it.

tapinosis: debased naming, e.g. fiddler for musician, brook for Thames, tunes for Beethoven's Symphony.

thaumasmus: exclamation of wonder, e.g. "Oh, the idiocy of humankind who kill in war."

zeugma: use a verb to govern several words or clauses, but makes consistent sense in only one. Incongruent parallel. E.g. "He made a milkshake and then the world."

O, ho, I know the riddle. (Shakespeare King Lear V.i.L 327)

(Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor i.I.L 208)

(Malcolm 1958:29)

?

THE QUESTION IS:

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

A. Introduction.

It seems that the question, "What is a riddle?" is itself a riddle. It demands a reply, but it is not clear what kind of reply is expected. It is not clear what would count as a reply. Riddles are types of metaphors and metaphors are riddles. It is a riddle when two unlike things are identified and put forth as being somehow meaningful. Aristotle wrote: "The very nature of a riddle is to describe in an impossible combination of words [which] cannot be done with the real names for things, but can be with their metaphorical substitutes. Good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors; for metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a good metaphor."

Yalisove (1978) divides riddles into only three types: conceptual trick, ambiguity, and absurd. Gustav Hocke (1959:68-111), states that metaphor was once thought to have a mystical and demonic power, but is now thought of more as merely a riddle. It was thought that one might unravel the mystery or riddle of the universe-as if a magic word would be the key to it all. It is the experience of taking the part for the whole. If we can solve one riddle, then we can solve all riddles at the same time. Charles Zug (1967) says that the Zen approach of some sects is to meditate on a contradictory riddle for even twenty years. The solution which denies rationality supposedly leads to Satori. It is like eventually denying the question and our understanding. It is to try to show that nothing can be understood.

About riddles and questions Waismann wrote (1965:405), "To sense riddles and problems where others see before them the flat road of convention, is what constitutes the philosophic spirit. Questions lead us on and over the barriers of traditional opinions. Questions seduce us too, and lead us astray."

Remember the question at the beginning of the book: "Where is the laughing place?" So far we have tried to answer this question. But, now, it looks as if the question itself is a bit funny. The question is: "What is a question?" One can get "hooked" by putting a question mark at the end of some sentences. Let's just fish around a little and see how this happens. So, we can forget about answers for awhile and rather ask what the questions are. Are there really any such things? Is this one? "Thus far no folklorist has been able to give a definition of the riddle employing concrete and specific terms." (Georges & Dundes (1963:111-118)

Humor is riddle already. It is something that makes sense that does not make sense, something we must figure out, or solve. That is, humor virtually always involves a deviation or mistake. Riddles involve questions. Thus, to create humorous riddles we need only make mistakes with questions and answers. We can do this, for example, by asking faulty or nonsense questions, or by giving nonsense answers. Ah, the possibilities! Because all of these questions or answers are faulty, they are metaphors, and not genuine questions and answers. Most of our most fundamental beliefs are based on faulty questions or faulty answers. This observation is especially valuable for application in philosophical education and practice.

There are as many types of mistakes we can make with questions as there are types of humor. We may also take any sentence or statement and make it into a question. We may take any type of humor in this book and make a riddle of that type. We need only put it in the form of a question. When we learn about riddles we learn something about how questions work and about how they can mislead us. An example of a pun riddle, or ambiguity riddle is: Q. What has a hand but doesn't wash its face? A. A clock. The question seems to be self-contradictory. But a way to make sense of it is to see that "hand" means a person's hand, or the hand of a clock. It is a metaphor and a pun. If a clock literally had a hand, it would be a funny clock. It would be odd if this hand could not wash its face. But the hand of a clock can "sweep" its face. We speak of a sweep-second hand. Thus, this riddle has in it the following types of humor: 1) pun or ambiguity, 2) taking a metaphor literally, 3) metaphor, 4) contradiction. But we may call it basically ambiguity humor. It may be seen that because the question is so vague, very many answers could be given. For example: Q. What has a hand, but doesn't wash its face? A. My little brother. This could be ridicule riddle humor.

The following serious-humor poem explores some problems with questions:

was an "I"

and still thinking that a dog

chasing its tail

was genuine progress

and that cows have tails

to protect themselves from teachers,

I had a strong desire

to touch a girl's funny bone

and learn what caused an ant

to walk.

Would one pull on a pigtail

bring down all knowledge?

Why is Eric a mouse,

Humphrey an elephant,

and people far away so small?

Do pies have mothers?

How many bugs are there

under a building?

Did questions themselves grow big?

Did I trip my friend

or just move my foot?

Should marriage vows

include peanut butter?

Was he sawing a plank or cutting a board?

Why do people smile when talking on the telephone?

Why do fluids in bottles

make people act strange?

I could write a book

of only questions.

What is the right way to write?

And why can, anything be bad?

Can weeds be good?

Is religion humor?

What is the difference between

sweating and thinking?

Are works of art ever finished?

Are words accident prone?

Do people joke in dreams?

Are numbers things?

What is the cause of anything?

Why are questions questions?

And must this poem have a plot?

Warren Shibles (1987b:132)

B. Types of Questions and Answers (Erotetic Logic)

What is a question? Wittgenstein (1968:#24)

The question arises: Can't we be mistaken in thinking that we understand a question?

(Wittgenstein 1968:#517)

There are many types of questions, answers, and riddles. Even the best scholars are quite confused about them. The more we know about how questions work, the better we will be able to understand and create riddles. But, also, the better we will be able to understand how questions work and how they can mislead us. Basically we may find that there are four types of questions and answers: 1) askable, 2) answerable; 3) unaskable, 4) unanswerable. "How old is this pig?" is answerable. "Why?" is not answerable. We do not know what is meant. Here are some types of questions and answers:

Q. Do you have a mind? A. First tell me what "mind" means, then we'll see if we have any.

2. Genuine questions and faulty answer. Example:

Q. What happens when a girl swallows bullets? A. Her hair grows into bangs.

Q. What is the difference between a rabbit? A. One floppy ear is both the same.

Q. If buttercups are yellow, what color are hiccups? A. Burple.

Q. How do you square a circle? A. Push out the four corners.

4. Faulty or genuine question, and no answer given. (This defeats the very reason for asking a question.)

Q. Why are you here today? A. For no reason.

Alice (Alice in Wonderland ) suggests that the Hatter "might do something better with the time than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers." (Carroll 1960:69)

The humor produced is due partly to the fact that a question is asked as if it has an answer, but no answer was intended. This is to ask a nonquestion, or to ask a question and take it back suddenly.

5. Genuine question.

The answer is genuine and possible, but we do not know it. This is not faulty, or a mistake, so it does not usually produce humor. Q. Why did you decide to have children? A. I don't know.

6. Genuine question, but whatever one answers is rejected or avoided. [Zen] Q. Where did he go after his death? A. It makes one think. Q. What is Zen? A. It is cloudy today and I won't answer. Q. You see how defensive you are? A. But you asked for a reason. The technique of this last example is used to catch one in a double bind, or impossible, or contradictory situation. It is an attack, an attempt to try to overpower. It is often used in questioning prisoners. The prisoner is asked to confess something in particular. The accused will be executed if no confession is given. But the accused is not told what it is that must be confessed. This was the method used in the religious Spanish Inquisition, but not very humorous.

If someone does not admit being abused we say that they are in denial. Compare this with the following from "Alice's Evidence" (Carroll 1960:111): "'Please, your Majesty,' said the Knave, 'I didn't write it, and they can't prove I did: there's no name signed at the end.' 'If you didn't sign it,' said the King, 'that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you'd have signed your name like an honest man.'"

7. A question (genuine or faulty) is answered with a question. Q. What is the fundamental teaching of Buddha? A. Is there enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool? Q. Where do we go after death? A. That's an interesting question isn't it? Q. Why is the elephant wrinkled? A. Have you ever tried to iron one? Q. What is the basis of Zen? A. Have you washed your dishes?

"Faulty" question in the above account means that there are vague words used, contradictions, meaningless words, improper grammar, metaphors, and any mistake or deviation or types of humor discussed in this book. A faulty question is, "Does Zxpf4 exist?" "Do I exist?"

Genuine questions have genuine answers. It is contradictory to say that a genuine question has no answer. That is why it is a joke to say a riddle, if genuine, has no answer. Our task in clarifying our knowledge is to assess the intelligibility of questions before looking for answers. To do so is humorous because it is a deviation. We are accustomed to just seeking answers and not question questions. Question-humor works like other humor in that it breaks down our understanding. It asks or answers something unintelligible to us. Questions are asked for which have no answers, and answers are given when there are no genuine questions. We ask the unaskable and answer the unanswerable. We expect one thing, or one answer, but receive another. This is defeated expectation humor.

Questions also express or make statements which are not meant to be answered. That is, we do not use these questions to ask something, but only to state something. Thus, they deviate from the main use of questions. Because they deviate, they are metaphorical. Questions of this type may: 1) express "rhetorical questions," not meant to be answered. For example, "I like you a lot, don't I?" 2) express a complaint. For example, "How could you do such a thing?" or "Why did this have to happen to me?" 3) express surprise, for example, "Well, what do you know?" 4) express bewilderment, for example, "What is the real meaning of life?" "How could the world have come to be as it is?"

The case is this. If we have a question we wish answered we must know what would count as an answer. If none of the usual sound sorts of answers will do, then we are asking a meaningless question. It is a question for which there is no answer. We may answer: "Your question does not make sense." So, one way of solving some riddles, and mystical, philosophical, or scientific questions, is to show that the question does not make sense. We can always ask "Why?" whenever we are given an answer to a question. We can ask "Why?" to that answer and "Why?" again, and so on. We never arrive at a final answer. That is a riddle. It is why we can always laugh at whatever reason or reply is given to a question. Who caused you to be robbed? The student. Who caused him/her to rob? The teacher and parents, etc. You yourself have caused yourself to be robbed by not being humanistic enough to provide critical thinking, ethics, and emotion education in the schools. Ironically we in this way rob ourselves.

Why is a peach soft?

Can we know everything?

Can we know anything?

Do you exist?

How do cells really work?

How do you think?

Is it true that nothing can be understood?

Is the absolute red?

Is the final answer a question?

Is thinking like digestion?

What are you for?

Do ants think?

What does everything really mean?

What does it feel like to be you?

What is being?

What is life all about?

What is real?

What should everyone do?

Why do you think?

Why does the world exist?

Are two things ever really alike?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why were you born?

Why weren't you a jelly bean?

Alice drinks from a bottle, and shrinks to a height of ten inches. She then wonders if she will snuff out altogether, like the flame of a candle. She asks, "I wonder what I should look like then?" (Carroll 1960:22)

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When humor is meant to be taken seriously, it's no joke. (Lionel Strachey)

The genuine seeker after truth sets little store by triumphing over a rival. (Huizinga 1970)

Comedy differs from abuse since abuse openly censures the bad qualities.

(Aristotle, in Cooper 1922:162)

Wit is cultured insolence. (Aristotle Rhetoric Book ii, ch. 12, sect. 16)

If you have wit, use it to please and not to hurt. (Lord Chesterfield Letters, Sept. 5, 1748)

Doing Philosophy is Dumb. (Michael Gelven 2000:153)

Other words for "ridicule" also show that it is unacceptable behavior: insult, derision, the ludicrous, the grotesquely foolish, mockery, sneer, scorn, smart aleck, wisecrack, sardonic (bitter and mocking), sarcastic (hostile, cutting remark), make fun of someone, lampoon (a biting personal attack on someone), harsh criticism, and put-down. Ridicule can hypocritically be presented as humor, though it is not. Thus, we may wish to remove "ridicule" from our lives. People who ridicule also make themselves look bad.

Theorists who think aggression is the basis of humor may have come to that position partly because humor is based on deviation and that may be seen as a kind of aggression. Feinberg (1978:205) regards humor as "playful aggression," although he thinks that all humor is aggressive. If ridicule is used as a form of criticism to help one to accept one's faults as a form of self-deprecation, it may be useful, but is not still humor.

1. I've heard of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In your case, they just made a sow's ear into a bigger sow's ear. 2. He is a bit of a musician and a bit of a lawyer. The musicians think he is a lawyer, and the lawyers think he is a musician. 3. It may encourage you to know that no one is 100% boring. 4. If you had to do it over, would you fall in love with yourself again? 5. "I…discourage linguists from engaging in philosophy of science and encourage them to do something they are good at." (Pullum 1991:125) 6. "From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it." (Groucho Marx) 7. The way to trap a Marine is to wait 'til he gets a drink and then slam the toilet seat down on his head. 8. One question about your book. Why are there so many pages in it? 9. To sleep on a problem before deciding is called in German beschnarchen, meaning literally to snore on it.

Ridicule often takes the form of jokes intending to show the alleged ignorance of the people in certain areas or professions, e.g. Polish, Italian, Irish, Swiss Appenzellers, etc. jokes. It need have nothing to do with the actual intelligence of such people. Professors are joked about as being absent minded. In fact, such humor consists of virtually all of the various types of humor. To illustrate, the following are examples of humor about the East Frisians. Understandably, such humor books are often not available in Frisian areas. Several years ago while in Holland, I was looking for books on the phonetics of the Frisian dialects and found a dictionary entitled Van Goor's Klein Fries Woordenboek (1988) published by the authoritative Algemiene Fryske Underrjocht Kommisje. Knowing about how Frisians are often unfairly ridiculed, I immediately noticed that the contents of the book were printed upside down! I asked the clerk if she would give me a discount and she replied that she would rather just give me a proper copy. In fact, I found the upside down copy to be more valuable than a proper one and would have even paid extra for it. The following is my translation of jokes about East Frisian, from Freese (1989) Ostfriesenwitze. Note that it is in German, not Frisian. One may also create a pun out of the author's name: Freese which is like Fries ("Frisian"). The jokes are often the same ones used throughout the world and usually have nothing to do with East Frisians. The humor has nothing especially to do with Frisians.

Why do the East Frisians only go to the bathroom at midday? Because all the flies are in the kitchen then. (11)

East Frisian Farmer's Rule: If the rooster crows on the manure pile, either the weather will change or it will remain the same. (13)

An East Frisian in a music store: "I would like the red trumpet there and the white harmonica." The clerk hesitated, "The firehose you can have, but the radiator stays here." (15)

Why do doctors in East Friesland operate barefoot? Because the socks are needed for the anesthetic. (23)

What happens when an East Frisian swallows a fly? Then he has more brains in his stomach than in his head. (36)

You square pig-nosed, pancake Thanks for the

faced, cat tailed, four footed, compliment. When

You jerk face! You pig twig

(Dziemidok 1993:185)

A. Introduction.

B. Examples.

C. Light Bulb Jokes (Satire)

Linguists: [wøn tu skru In e bølb]