More boring rhetoric.
More boring rhetoric. I'm reading a thing about humor and after discussing Cicero and Greek writing about humor this author mentions Freud. Why? Apparently, he tried to analyze humor. Wrote a whole book about it (compare/contrast Greek writings about humor). Anyway, this author talks about how the Greeks were "unintentionally funny" in writing their texts on humor, and then says the same about Freud. His example of a joke from Freud's book:
Prisoner on his way to the gallows: "Well, this is a good beginning to the week."
The author says this is unfunny. Maybe I'm just partial to gallows humor (huh, huh?), but that seemed pretty funny to me. Ok, I could have just said dark humor, but where's the fun in that? Anyway, I disagree with this author. It's funny. I even looked up the Freud book (in English) and skimmed a bit. It's a product of its time and you better like puns, even multilingual puns, but it qualifies as funny.
Aside:
All of this makes me think of Daniel Trooper in Pratchett's "Making Money".
I am your executioner for today, sir. Don’t you worry, sir. I’ve hanged dozens of people. We’ll soon have you out of here.
... I've never seen someone up here more'n once, sir. Shall we go?
Granted, you could argue that Pratchett isn't trying to persuade anyone of anything. This author probably wouldn't think it was funny, though.
Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", though, was definitely making a point about a man and his horse being hung (ba-dum-ching!).
Prisoner on his way to the gallows: "Well, this is a good beginning to the week."
The author says this is unfunny. Maybe I'm just partial to gallows humor (huh, huh?), but that seemed pretty funny to me. Ok, I could have just said dark humor, but where's the fun in that? Anyway, I disagree with this author. It's funny. I even looked up the Freud book (in English) and skimmed a bit. It's a product of its time and you better like puns, even multilingual puns, but it qualifies as funny.
Aside:
All of this makes me think of Daniel Trooper in Pratchett's "Making Money".
I am your executioner for today, sir. Don’t you worry, sir. I’ve hanged dozens of people. We’ll soon have you out of here.
... I've never seen someone up here more'n once, sir. Shall we go?
Granted, you could argue that Pratchett isn't trying to persuade anyone of anything. This author probably wouldn't think it was funny, though.
Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", though, was definitely making a point about a man and his horse being hung (ba-dum-ching!).
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