rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/01/85)
LESSON 1: ANALYSIS OF JOCULAR TECHNIQUE ---------------------------------------- This course will delve into a variety of theories of humor analysis, starting first with the Costello-Mouret Hypothesis, which stipulates that all jokes really have exactly the same concept and idea behind them, but that the words, names, and places are altered to suit the needs of the current time and place. This is called "vehicular substitution". This theory holds that all humor can be analyzed using this technique and more importantly, that new humor is always created by this same process. A prime example of this is the "pedro repedro" joke template, as discovered by the great Spanish humorist Ricardo Mendizo Escolare el Lupo in the 15th century during the wars with the Moors. In English, this is the now famous "Pete-Repete" or "Pete-Repeat" joke, which goes something like this: [LABEL]: Joke-Teller: Pete and Repete were walking down the street. Pete fell down. Who was left? Joke-Hearer: Repete. Joke-Teller: [GOTO LABEL;] [NOTE: The above is an analysis of this joke-form using the specially devised humor analysis language, Joke Analysis and Recital Translator, or JARTRAN.] This is an example of "x-yx" or "pedro-repedro" word pairs being used in a humorous context. A new form can be devised, using vehicular substitution, by substituting a similar "x-yx" word pair. For instance, if your potential joke-hearer (JH) is a fan of classical music, the joke could go something like this: [LABEL]: JT: Bach and Offenbach were walking down the street. Bach wrote a fugue. Who was left? JH: Offenbach. JT: [GOTO LABEL;] The observant student will notice that this new version of the joke has an extremely low "humor quotient" or HQ. In laymen's terms, this means that the joke is not funny. Many humorologists have claimed that this fact shoots very large unfillable holes in the Costello-Mouret Hypothesis. However, other humorologists have made it their life's work to raise the humor quotient of this joke to an acceptable level. A gifted student studying under Prof. Burns and Prof. Schreiber at the Institute for Comedic Research utilized a somewhat unusual methodology for accomplishing this task. He claimed that the reason for the lower humor quotient in the newer version of the joke resulted from the different meanings of the words "repeat" and "Offenbach". The word "Offenbach" means "a German-born French composer who wrote operettas", rather than "go back to the beginning and start again". Thus, he stated that the solution was to change the meaning of the word "Offenbach". This is not as easy as it sounds. At first, he tried changing the word "Offenbach" to "often Bach". Noticing that this tactic still failed to produce an appreciative humorous response in the listener, the student then changed "often Bach" to "Often, Bach would write a fugue, tear it up, and then start all over again like this: ". In fact, this actually reduced the humor quotient by over 25 points, which was very poor indeed since it had only started out with a humor quotient of 2. This student is now majoring in computer science. IMPORTANT TERMS LEARNED IN THIS LESSON -------------------------------------- HQ or humor quotient - a measure of the humor content of a given joke (The method for deriving HQ will be explained in a subsequent lesson.) JARTRAN - Joke Analysis and Recital TRANslator (Many people have flamed in the past about the JARTRAN response time. Alternative humor analysis tools may be discussed during this course including the Understandable Humor Analysis Universal Language.) joke-form - a template from which a joke is derived (e.g., pedro repedro) mendizo - this word has no known meaning in any language, especially Spanish (e.g., JT: "Yo soy un mendizo." JH: "@Que?") [TRANSLATION: "I am a mendizo." "What?"] vehicular substitution - see "chinese fire drill" CLASS EXERCISE: Show how the "nocus nocus" or "knock knock" joke form evolved from the "pedro repedro" form. [HINT: "Nocus et Nocus Nocus ambularum stratus..." ] -- "There! I've run rings 'round you logically!" "Oh, intercourse the penguin!" Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr