Under laughlab.co.uk there's a world-wide experiment in evaluating jokes, and finding out the cultural differences in risibility, there's also an attendant BBC documentary.
Turns out, Canadians liked the jokes least, they say because they're spoilt with good comedians and high standards. Germans laughed most easily; 'they'll laugh about anything'. One explanation offered is that 'a happy people like Canadians' don't laugh as easily as 'an unhappy people like Germans', because they have less need for the liberating, self-affirming effects of humor.
Americans tend to like superiority jokes (humor at others' expense);
I wonder if that indicates an underlying unhappiness, or merely a culture where strenght and self-affirmation are celebrated. Some Americans couldn't understand this joke at first hearing: "So, how long do I still have to live, doc?" - "ten..." - "what, ten months?" - "...nine, eight, seven..."
Brits like puns and word-games, no surprise there.
Australians have macabre jokes (how do you get a one-armed Australian off a tree? Throw a can of beer at him).
Japanese humor can be hermetic ("Here's ten ants" - "oh, thank you!"), but not necessarily so (why do Japanes dogs wag their tail vertically? there's not enough room to do it horizontally).
The best joke is the one most people find somewhat funny, they each of them will find others much funnier (two hunters, one suddenly has trouble breathing and falls unconscious, the other calls an ambulance, saying he thinks his pal's dead... they say, stay calm, make sure he's really dead...next, they hear a shot, and the guy says, okay, done, what next?)
Actually, a most hilarious piece of humor was the Monty Python sketch about the British army in World War One getting their hands on a joke that was so funny it would kill anyone who heard it with laughter - it killed the guy who invented it, his wife who found it etc., and so they got it translated into German by giving different pieces to different translaters, and then the German version was read out over the trenches... and the war was won.
A thing we have in common, across all trenches. More than X-mas, even, though that also was a touching story in the first world war, them all celebrating Holy Night together in the trenches, and almost stopping the whole slaughtering.
best, t.
Turns out, Canadians liked the jokes least, they say because they're spoilt with good comedians and high standards. Germans laughed most easily; 'they'll laugh about anything'. One explanation offered is that 'a happy people like Canadians' don't laugh as easily as 'an unhappy people like Germans', because they have less need for the liberating, self-affirming effects of humor.
Americans tend to like superiority jokes (humor at others' expense);
I wonder if that indicates an underlying unhappiness, or merely a culture where strenght and self-affirmation are celebrated. Some Americans couldn't understand this joke at first hearing: "So, how long do I still have to live, doc?" - "ten..." - "what, ten months?" - "...nine, eight, seven..."
Brits like puns and word-games, no surprise there.
Australians have macabre jokes (how do you get a one-armed Australian off a tree? Throw a can of beer at him).
Japanese humor can be hermetic ("Here's ten ants" - "oh, thank you!"), but not necessarily so (why do Japanes dogs wag their tail vertically? there's not enough room to do it horizontally).
The best joke is the one most people find somewhat funny, they each of them will find others much funnier (two hunters, one suddenly has trouble breathing and falls unconscious, the other calls an ambulance, saying he thinks his pal's dead... they say, stay calm, make sure he's really dead...next, they hear a shot, and the guy says, okay, done, what next?)
Actually, a most hilarious piece of humor was the Monty Python sketch about the British army in World War One getting their hands on a joke that was so funny it would kill anyone who heard it with laughter - it killed the guy who invented it, his wife who found it etc., and so they got it translated into German by giving different pieces to different translaters, and then the German version was read out over the trenches... and the war was won.
A thing we have in common, across all trenches. More than X-mas, even, though that also was a touching story in the first world war, them all celebrating Holy Night together in the trenches, and almost stopping the whole slaughtering.
best, t.
