Author: Matthew M. Hurley
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518694
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
This evolutionary and cognitive theory of humor seeks to reveal the complex science behind why we crack up. “A sophisticated analysis . . . written with clarity, good cheer, and, of course, wit.” ―Steven Pinker, author of How The Mind Works Some things are funny—jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed—but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature—aka natural selection—cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.
Inside Jokes
Author: Matthew M. Hurley
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518694
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
This evolutionary and cognitive theory of humor seeks to reveal the complex science behind why we crack up. “A sophisticated analysis . . . written with clarity, good cheer, and, of course, wit.” ―Steven Pinker, author of How The Mind Works Some things are funny—jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed—but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature—aka natural selection—cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518694
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
This evolutionary and cognitive theory of humor seeks to reveal the complex science behind why we crack up. “A sophisticated analysis . . . written with clarity, good cheer, and, of course, wit.” ―Steven Pinker, author of How The Mind Works Some things are funny—jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed—but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature—aka natural selection—cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.
Žižek's Jokes
Author: Slavoj ŹZiŹzek
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262026716
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
Žižek as comedian: jokes in the service of philosophy. “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein The good news is that this book offers an entertaining but enlightening compilation of Žižekisms. Unlike any other book by Slavoj Žižek, this compact arrangement of jokes culled from his writings provides an index to certain philosophical, political, and sexual themes that preoccupy him. Žižek's Jokes contains the set-ups and punch lines—as well as the offenses and insults—that Žižek is famous for, all in less than 200 pages. So what's the bad news? There is no bad news. There's just the inimitable Slavoj Žižek, disguised as an impossibly erudite, politically incorrect uncle, beginning a sentence, “There is an old Jewish joke, loved by Derrida...“ For Žižek, jokes are amusing stories that offer a shortcut to philosophical insight. He illustrates the logic of the Hegelian triad, for example, with three variations of the “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache” classic: first the wife claims a migraine; then the husband does; then the wife exclaims, “Darling, I have a terrible migraine, so let's have some sex to refresh me!” A punch line about a beer bottle provides a Lacanian lesson about one signifier. And a “truly obscene” version of the famous “aristocrats” joke has the family offering a short course in Hegelian thought rather than a display of unspeakables. Žižek's Jokes contains every joke cited, paraphrased, or narrated in Žižek's work in English (including some in unpublished manuscripts), including different versions of the same joke that make different points in different contexts. The larger point being that comedy is central to Žižek's seriousness.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262026716
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
Žižek as comedian: jokes in the service of philosophy. “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein The good news is that this book offers an entertaining but enlightening compilation of Žižekisms. Unlike any other book by Slavoj Žižek, this compact arrangement of jokes culled from his writings provides an index to certain philosophical, political, and sexual themes that preoccupy him. Žižek's Jokes contains the set-ups and punch lines—as well as the offenses and insults—that Žižek is famous for, all in less than 200 pages. So what's the bad news? There is no bad news. There's just the inimitable Slavoj Žižek, disguised as an impossibly erudite, politically incorrect uncle, beginning a sentence, “There is an old Jewish joke, loved by Derrida...“ For Žižek, jokes are amusing stories that offer a shortcut to philosophical insight. He illustrates the logic of the Hegelian triad, for example, with three variations of the “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache” classic: first the wife claims a migraine; then the husband does; then the wife exclaims, “Darling, I have a terrible migraine, so let's have some sex to refresh me!” A punch line about a beer bottle provides a Lacanian lesson about one signifier. And a “truly obscene” version of the famous “aristocrats” joke has the family offering a short course in Hegelian thought rather than a display of unspeakables. Žižek's Jokes contains every joke cited, paraphrased, or narrated in Žižek's work in English (including some in unpublished manuscripts), including different versions of the same joke that make different points in different contexts. The larger point being that comedy is central to Žižek's seriousness.
Jokes
Author: Ted Cohen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226112322
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
Abe and his friend Sol are out for a walk together in a part of town they haven't been in before. Passing a Christian church, they notice a curious sign in front that says "$1,000 to anyone who will convert." "I wonder what that's about," says Abe. "I think I'll go in and have a look. I'll be back in a minute; just wait for me." Sol sits on the sidewalk bench and waits patiently for nearly half an hour. Finally, Abe reappears. "Well," asks Sol, "what are they up to? Who are they trying to convert? Why do they care? Did you get the $1,000?" Indignantly Abe replies, "Money. That's all you people care about." Ted Cohen thinks that's not a bad joke. But he also doesn't think it's an easy joke. For a listener or reader to laugh at Abe's conversion, a complicated set of conditions must be met. First, a listener has to recognize that Abe and Sol are Jewish names. Second, that listener has to be familiar with the widespread idea that Jews are more interested in money than anything else. And finally, the listener needs to know this information in advance of the joke, and without anyone telling him or her. Jokes, in short, are complicated transactions in which communities are forged, intimacy is offered, and otherwise offensive stereotypes and cliches lose their sting—at least sometimes. Jokes is a book of jokes and a book about them. Cohen loves a good laugh, but as a philosopher, he is also interested in how jokes work, why they work, and when they don't. The delight at the end of a joke is the result of a complex set of conditions and processes, and Cohen takes us through these conditions in a philosophical exploration of humor. He considers questions of audience, selection of joke topics, the ethnic character of jokes, and their morality, all with plenty of examples that will make you either chuckle or wince. Jokes: more humorous than other philosophy books, more philosophical than other humor books. "Befitting its subject, this study of jokes is . . . light, funny, and thought-provoking. . . . [T]he method fits the material, allowing the author to pepper the book with a diversity of jokes without flattening their humor as a steamroller theory might. Such a book is only as good as its jokes, and most of his are good. . . . [E]ntertainment and ideas in one gossamer package."—Kirkus Reviews "One of the many triumphs of Ted Cohen's Jokes-apart from the not incidental fact that the jokes are so good that he doesn't bother to compete with them-is that it never tries to sound more profound than the jokes it tells. . . . [H]e makes you feel he is doing an unusual kind of philosophy. As though he has managed to turn J. L. Austin into one of the Marx Brothers. . . . Reading Jokes makes you feel that being genial is the most profound thing we ever do-which is something jokes also make us feel-and that doing philosophy is as natural as being amused."—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books "[A] lucid and jargon-free study of the remarkable fact that we divert each other with stories meant to make us laugh. . . . An illuminating study, replete with killer jokes."—Kevin McCardle, The Herald (Glasgow) "Cohen is an ardent joke-maker, keen to offer us a glimpse of how jokes are crafted and to have us dwell rather longer on their effects."—Barry C. Smith, Times Literary Supplement "Because Ted Cohen loves jokes, we come to appreciate them more, and perhaps think further about the quality of good humor and the appropriateness of laughter in our lives."—Steve Carlson, Christian Science Monitor
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226112322
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
Abe and his friend Sol are out for a walk together in a part of town they haven't been in before. Passing a Christian church, they notice a curious sign in front that says "$1,000 to anyone who will convert." "I wonder what that's about," says Abe. "I think I'll go in and have a look. I'll be back in a minute; just wait for me." Sol sits on the sidewalk bench and waits patiently for nearly half an hour. Finally, Abe reappears. "Well," asks Sol, "what are they up to? Who are they trying to convert? Why do they care? Did you get the $1,000?" Indignantly Abe replies, "Money. That's all you people care about." Ted Cohen thinks that's not a bad joke. But he also doesn't think it's an easy joke. For a listener or reader to laugh at Abe's conversion, a complicated set of conditions must be met. First, a listener has to recognize that Abe and Sol are Jewish names. Second, that listener has to be familiar with the widespread idea that Jews are more interested in money than anything else. And finally, the listener needs to know this information in advance of the joke, and without anyone telling him or her. Jokes, in short, are complicated transactions in which communities are forged, intimacy is offered, and otherwise offensive stereotypes and cliches lose their sting—at least sometimes. Jokes is a book of jokes and a book about them. Cohen loves a good laugh, but as a philosopher, he is also interested in how jokes work, why they work, and when they don't. The delight at the end of a joke is the result of a complex set of conditions and processes, and Cohen takes us through these conditions in a philosophical exploration of humor. He considers questions of audience, selection of joke topics, the ethnic character of jokes, and their morality, all with plenty of examples that will make you either chuckle or wince. Jokes: more humorous than other philosophy books, more philosophical than other humor books. "Befitting its subject, this study of jokes is . . . light, funny, and thought-provoking. . . . [T]he method fits the material, allowing the author to pepper the book with a diversity of jokes without flattening their humor as a steamroller theory might. Such a book is only as good as its jokes, and most of his are good. . . . [E]ntertainment and ideas in one gossamer package."—Kirkus Reviews "One of the many triumphs of Ted Cohen's Jokes-apart from the not incidental fact that the jokes are so good that he doesn't bother to compete with them-is that it never tries to sound more profound than the jokes it tells. . . . [H]e makes you feel he is doing an unusual kind of philosophy. As though he has managed to turn J. L. Austin into one of the Marx Brothers. . . . Reading Jokes makes you feel that being genial is the most profound thing we ever do-which is something jokes also make us feel-and that doing philosophy is as natural as being amused."—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books "[A] lucid and jargon-free study of the remarkable fact that we divert each other with stories meant to make us laugh. . . . An illuminating study, replete with killer jokes."—Kevin McCardle, The Herald (Glasgow) "Cohen is an ardent joke-maker, keen to offer us a glimpse of how jokes are crafted and to have us dwell rather longer on their effects."—Barry C. Smith, Times Literary Supplement "Because Ted Cohen loves jokes, we come to appreciate them more, and perhaps think further about the quality of good humor and the appropriateness of laughter in our lives."—Steve Carlson, Christian Science Monitor
The Everything Big Book of Jokes
Author: Evan C Thomas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 144057698X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Have you heard the one about... You'll laugh yourself silly with The Everything Big Book of Jokes! Inside this sidesplitting collection, you'll find only the most popular kinds of jokes, riddles, and funnies from a dynamic professional comedian, including: Short jokes, one-liners, and puns Jokes about spouses, in-laws, kids, and grandparents Office and sports jokes Animal humor Classics, including "Guy walks into a bar..." blonde jokes, priest and rabbi jokes, even knock-knock jokes Filled with countless gags, giggles, and guffaws, this book is sure to tickle your funny bone--and make you the life of the party!
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 144057698X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Have you heard the one about... You'll laugh yourself silly with The Everything Big Book of Jokes! Inside this sidesplitting collection, you'll find only the most popular kinds of jokes, riddles, and funnies from a dynamic professional comedian, including: Short jokes, one-liners, and puns Jokes about spouses, in-laws, kids, and grandparents Office and sports jokes Animal humor Classics, including "Guy walks into a bar..." blonde jokes, priest and rabbi jokes, even knock-knock jokes Filled with countless gags, giggles, and guffaws, this book is sure to tickle your funny bone--and make you the life of the party!
The Treehouse Joke Book
Author: Andy Griffiths
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
ISBN: 1250259495
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
What's black and white and read all over the world? The New York Times–bestselling Treehouse series, of course! International author-illustrator superstar duo Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton are back, and this time they've cooked up a hilarious joke book to complement their beloved chapter book series. Chock-full of gags, quips, and puns—both all-new and some that were previously featured in The 104-Story Treehouse—The Treehouse Joke Book promises countless laughs both for existing fans and newcomers to the Treehouse universe.
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
ISBN: 1250259495
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
What's black and white and read all over the world? The New York Times–bestselling Treehouse series, of course! International author-illustrator superstar duo Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton are back, and this time they've cooked up a hilarious joke book to complement their beloved chapter book series. Chock-full of gags, quips, and puns—both all-new and some that were previously featured in The 104-Story Treehouse—The Treehouse Joke Book promises countless laughs both for existing fans and newcomers to the Treehouse universe.
Accidentally Perfect
Author: Marissa Clarke
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ISBN: 1649371896
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Includes excerpts from The sweetheart deal by Miranda Liasson and The best kept secret by Tawna Fenske.
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ISBN: 1649371896
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Includes excerpts from The sweetheart deal by Miranda Liasson and The best kept secret by Tawna Fenske.
An Unofficial Joke Book for Fortniters: Sidesplitting Jokes and Shenanigans from Salty Springs
Author: Brian Boone
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510748083
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
Jump out of the Battle Bus and jump into more than eight hundred side-splitting jokes! Jump out of the Battle Bus and jump into more than eight hundred side-splitting jokes! Jokes for Fortniters is an all-new, laugh-out-loud book of jokes for you and your squad. From Battle Royale puns and wordplay to funny one-liners that will have you dancing, this hysterical book has the cleverest jokes about Fortnite and game play. Cackle your way to victory with the funniest, craziest, and silliest jokes you can fire off to everyone on the island! Inside you will find funny gags such as: What do a door and a new Fortnite player have in common? They both get “knocked” a lot. What happens after you drink too much Slurp Juice? You burp juice! What kind of pop should Fortniters never drink? Shield pop! Where do Fortniters sleep? In a nite fort! For kids ages eight and up, this is the perfect book for at home, at school, or any battle royale! You’ll enjoy telling these silly jokes to your friends and family. Get extra laughs from silly illustrations throughout!
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510748083
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
Jump out of the Battle Bus and jump into more than eight hundred side-splitting jokes! Jump out of the Battle Bus and jump into more than eight hundred side-splitting jokes! Jokes for Fortniters is an all-new, laugh-out-loud book of jokes for you and your squad. From Battle Royale puns and wordplay to funny one-liners that will have you dancing, this hysterical book has the cleverest jokes about Fortnite and game play. Cackle your way to victory with the funniest, craziest, and silliest jokes you can fire off to everyone on the island! Inside you will find funny gags such as: What do a door and a new Fortnite player have in common? They both get “knocked” a lot. What happens after you drink too much Slurp Juice? You burp juice! What kind of pop should Fortniters never drink? Shield pop! Where do Fortniters sleep? In a nite fort! For kids ages eight and up, this is the perfect book for at home, at school, or any battle royale! You’ll enjoy telling these silly jokes to your friends and family. Get extra laughs from silly illustrations throughout!
How to Tell a Joke
Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691206163
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
"Everyone knows that Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the great statesmen, lawyers, and effective orators in the history of Rome. But did you also know he was regarded as one of the funniest people in Roman society as well? Five hundred years after his death, in the twilight of antiquity, the writer Macrobius ranks him alongside the comic playwright Plautus as the one of the two greatest wits ever. In this book, classicist Michael Fontaine, proposes to translate selections from Cicero's great rhetorical treatise, On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore). That larger work covered the whole of rhetoric and effective public speaking and debate. However, contained within it, is a long section focused on the effective use of humor in public speaking. In it, Cicero is concerned not just with various kinds of individual jokes, but with jokes that are advantageous in social situations. He advises readers on how to make the most effective use of wit to win friends, audiences, and achieve their overall ambitions. Cicero wants to teach his readers how to tell a joke without looking like a buffoon, and how to prevent or avoid jokes from backfiring. Hence, he does give scores of examples of jokes-some of which are timeless and translate easily, others that involve puns in Latin that challenged the translator's creativity. But overall, this work brings to the fore a little known, but important part of Cicero's classic work."--
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691206163
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
"Everyone knows that Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the great statesmen, lawyers, and effective orators in the history of Rome. But did you also know he was regarded as one of the funniest people in Roman society as well? Five hundred years after his death, in the twilight of antiquity, the writer Macrobius ranks him alongside the comic playwright Plautus as the one of the two greatest wits ever. In this book, classicist Michael Fontaine, proposes to translate selections from Cicero's great rhetorical treatise, On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore). That larger work covered the whole of rhetoric and effective public speaking and debate. However, contained within it, is a long section focused on the effective use of humor in public speaking. In it, Cicero is concerned not just with various kinds of individual jokes, but with jokes that are advantageous in social situations. He advises readers on how to make the most effective use of wit to win friends, audiences, and achieve their overall ambitions. Cicero wants to teach his readers how to tell a joke without looking like a buffoon, and how to prevent or avoid jokes from backfiring. Hence, he does give scores of examples of jokes-some of which are timeless and translate easily, others that involve puns in Latin that challenged the translator's creativity. But overall, this work brings to the fore a little known, but important part of Cicero's classic work."--
Nonverbal Communication
Author: Ullica Segerstrale
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135124311X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 431
Book Description
The field of nonverbal communication is a strategic site for demonstrating the inextricable interrelationship between nature and culture in human behaviour. This book, originally published in 1997, aims to explode the misconception that "biology" is something that automatically precludes or excludes "culture". Instead, it points to the necessary grounding of our social and cultural capabilities in biological givens and elucidates how biological factors are systematically co-opted for cultural purposes. The book presents a complex picture of human communicative ability as simultaneously biologically and socioculturally influenced, with some capacities apparently more biologically hard-wired than others: face recognition, imitation, emotional communication, and the capacity for language. It also suggests that the dividing line between nonverbal and linguistic communication is becoming much less clear-cut. The contributing authors are leading researchers in a variety of fields, writing here for a general audience. The book is divided into sections dealing with, respectively, human universals, evolutionary and developmental aspects of nonverbal behaviour within a sociocultural context, and finally, the multifaceted relationships between nonverbal communication and culture.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135124311X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 431
Book Description
The field of nonverbal communication is a strategic site for demonstrating the inextricable interrelationship between nature and culture in human behaviour. This book, originally published in 1997, aims to explode the misconception that "biology" is something that automatically precludes or excludes "culture". Instead, it points to the necessary grounding of our social and cultural capabilities in biological givens and elucidates how biological factors are systematically co-opted for cultural purposes. The book presents a complex picture of human communicative ability as simultaneously biologically and socioculturally influenced, with some capacities apparently more biologically hard-wired than others: face recognition, imitation, emotional communication, and the capacity for language. It also suggests that the dividing line between nonverbal and linguistic communication is becoming much less clear-cut. The contributing authors are leading researchers in a variety of fields, writing here for a general audience. The book is divided into sections dealing with, respectively, human universals, evolutionary and developmental aspects of nonverbal behaviour within a sociocultural context, and finally, the multifaceted relationships between nonverbal communication and culture.
101 Wacky Kid Jokes
Author: Jovial Bob Stine
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780590413992
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
A collection of jokes about friends, siblings, parents, music and school.
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780590413992
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
A collection of jokes about friends, siblings, parents, music and school.