Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It PDF Author: James Geary
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039325495X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
"A witty book about wit that steers an elegant path between waggishness and wisdom." —Stephen Fry Much more than a knack for snappy comebacks, wit is the quick, instinctive intelligence that allows us to think, say, or do the right thing at the right time in the right place. In this whimsical book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns are the highest form of wit. Geary reasons that wit is both visual and verbal, physical and intellectual: there’s the serendipitous wit of scientists, the crafty wit of inventors, the optical wit of artists, and the metaphysical wit of philosophers. In Wit’s End, Geary embraces wit in every form by adopting a different style for each chapter; he writes the section on verbal repartee as a dramatic dialogue, the neuroscience of wit as a scientific paper, the spirituality of wit as a sermon, and other chapters in jive, rap, and the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope. Wit’s End agilely balances psychology, folktales, visual art, and literary history with lighthearted humor and acute insight, drawing upon traditions of wit from around the world. Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit’s End demonstrates that wit and wisdom are really the same thing.

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It PDF Author: James Geary
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039325495X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A witty book about wit that steers an elegant path between waggishness and wisdom." —Stephen Fry Much more than a knack for snappy comebacks, wit is the quick, instinctive intelligence that allows us to think, say, or do the right thing at the right time in the right place. In this whimsical book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns are the highest form of wit. Geary reasons that wit is both visual and verbal, physical and intellectual: there’s the serendipitous wit of scientists, the crafty wit of inventors, the optical wit of artists, and the metaphysical wit of philosophers. In Wit’s End, Geary embraces wit in every form by adopting a different style for each chapter; he writes the section on verbal repartee as a dramatic dialogue, the neuroscience of wit as a scientific paper, the spirituality of wit as a sermon, and other chapters in jive, rap, and the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope. Wit’s End agilely balances psychology, folktales, visual art, and literary history with lighthearted humor and acute insight, drawing upon traditions of wit from around the world. Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit’s End demonstrates that wit and wisdom are really the same thing.

At Wit's End

At Wit's End PDF Author: Erma Bombeck
Publisher: Fawcett
ISBN: 030777824X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"America's irrepressible doyenne of domestic satire." THE BOSTON GLOBE Madcap, bittersweet humor in classic Erma Bombeck-style. You'll laugh until it hurts and love it! "Any mother with half a skull knows that when Daddy's little boy becomes Mommy's little boy, the kid is so wet, he's treading water. What do you mean you're a participle in the school play and you need a costume? Those rotten kids. If only they'd let me wake up in my own way. Why do they have to line up along my bed and stare at me like Moby Dick just washed up onto a beach somewhere?"

Wit's End

Wit's End PDF Author: Sue Scheff
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
ISBN: 0757306977
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Sue Scheff turned to a therapeutic boarding school for solutions to her out-of-control teenage daughters behavior problems. Wits End is the story of how her attempt at saving her troubled teen turned into a nightmare and includes the program that she now implements to consult other parents who are at wits end through her national organization Parents Universal Resource Experts (PURE).

At Our Wit's End

At Our Wit's End PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780979765469
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description


Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck PDF Author: Allison Engel
Publisher: Samuel French, Incorporated
ISBN: 9780573705038
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
"From the writers of the smash hit Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins comes a comic look at one of our country's most beloved voices. Erma Bombeck captured the frustrations of her generation by asking, "If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?" Discover the story behind America's most beloved humorist who championed women's lives with wit that sprang from the most unexpected place of all - the truth."

The Quotable Oscar Wilde

The Quotable Oscar Wilde PDF Author: Running Press
Publisher: RP Minis
ISBN: 0762449829
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"I must die as I lived, beyond my means." Arguably the most quoted man in history, and certainly in his day, this enormous miniature collection is filled with Oscar Wildes' most notorious and witty sayings. Organized into five neat sections useful for any situation, this book is perfect for either enjoying in small bites or devouring in one sitting. Featuring a biography, quotes, a poem and short story, it is a must have for Wilde lovers and novices alike.

At Wit's End

At Wit's End PDF Author: Louis Kaplan
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 0823287572
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
CHOICE: OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE A scholarly and thought-provoking work that places Jewish humor at the center of a discourse about Jewish and German relations through most of the twentieth century. At Wit’s End explores the fascinating discourse on Jewish wit in the twentieth century when the Jewish joke became the subject of serious humanistic inquiry and inserted itself into the cultural and political debates among Germans and Jews against the ideologically charged backdrop of anti-Semitism, the Jewish question, and the Holocaust. The first in-depth study to explore the Jewish joke as a crucial rhetorical figure in larger cultural debates in Germany, author Louis Kaplan presents an engrossing and lucid work of scholarship that examines how “der jüdische Witz” (referring to both Jewish wit and jokes) was utilized differently in a number of texts, from the Weimar Republic to the rise of National Socialism, and how it was re-introduced into the public sphere after the Holocaust with the controversial publication of Salcia Landmann’s collection of Jewish jokes in the reparations era (Wiedergutmachung). Kaplan reviews the claims made about the Jewish joke and its provocative laughter by notable writers from a variety of ideological perspectives, demonstrating how their reflections on this complex cultural trope enable a better understanding of German–Jewish intercultural relations and their eventual breakdown in the Third Reich. He also illustrates how selfcritical and self-ironic Jewish Witz maintained a fraught and ambivalent relationship with anti-Semitism. In reviewing this critical and traumatic moment in modern German–Jewish history through the deadly discourse on the Jewish joke, At Wit’s End includes chapters on the virulent Austrian anti-Semitic racial theorist Arthur Trebitsch, the Nazi racial propagandist Siegfried Kadner, the German Marxist cultural historian Eduard Fuchs, the Jewish diasporic historian Erich Kahler, and the Jewish cabaret impresario Kurt Robitschek, among others. Shedding new light on anti-Semitism and on the Jewish question leading up to the Holocaust, At Wit’s End provides readers with a unique perspective by which to gain important insights about this crucial historical period that reverberates into the present day, when potentially offensive humor coupled with a toxic political climate and xenophobia can have deadly consequences.

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain PDF Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048648923X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
"Familiarity breeds contempt — and children." "When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear." "Heaven for climate. Hell for company." This attractive paperback gift edition of the renowned American humorist's epigrams and witticisms features hundreds of quips on life, love, history, culture, travel, and other topics from his fiction, essays, letters, and autobiography.

God at Your Wits' End

God at Your Wits' End PDF Author: Marilyn Meberg
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1418515337
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The good news about being at our wits' end is that God meets us there. To be human is to spend some time at our wits' end?in confusion, desperation, pain, and fear. In that difficult place, we long for a tangible, visible sign that God hears our cries and is actively working for good in our lives. But all too often, faulty thinking erodes our faith and alters our beliefs, causing us to ask; If He loves me so much, why do I hurt so much? Am I being punished? I thought I was forgiven. Why is faith so hard? What if I don't have enough? Why does God allow suffering? In God at Your Wits' End, Marilyn Meberg helps us cut through the mental clutter and confusion that lead to faulty thinking and shaky faith. She tenderly acknowledges our trials by revealing her own wits'-end experiences; then she points the way to rescue and respite by sharing the scriptural truths of God's enduring love and sovereign power.

Rural Wit and Wisdom

Rural Wit and Wisdom PDF Author: Jerry Apps
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
ISBN: 1938486773
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
In an updated and expanded edition of a timeless classic, bestselling author Jerry Apps has written and collected oft-spoken phrases, observations, comments, and conundrums celebrating country life and rural living. Black and white photographs by Steve Apps, an award-winning photojournalist, complement the text that offers humorous, touching, and unique glimpses into the lighter side of life in the Midwest.