1. On humour

2. Origin
 Ūmōr : moisture, fluid
 Controls human health and emotion

3. What is it?
There are various theories:
 Psychological
 Spiritual theories
 Unexplainable mystery.

4. Ancient opinions
by the dudes from Greece
 Plato - “essence of the ridiculous is an
ignorance in the weak”
 Aristotle - “ugliness that does not disgust is
fundamental to humour”

5. Superiority theory
 A person laughs about misfortunes of
others
 We laugh at inferior or ugly individuals

6. Incongruity theory
Not the incongruity per
se, but its realization
and resolution

7. Sexual selection
Humor emerged as an indicator of other traits
that were of survival value, such as human
intelligence

8. Misattribution Theory
“People (are) incapable
of knowing exactly
what it is they find
amusing”
“Humour's function is to
release psychic
energy”

9. Humour as defense mechanism
Overt expression of ideas and feelings that gives
pleasure to others.

10. Do monkey laugh?
 Why yes, they do.
 The hypothetical
person lacking a
sense of humour
would likely find the
behaviour induced by
humour to be
inexplicable, strange,
or even irrational.

11. The Evolution of Humour
 Evolved after the last common ancestor of
humans and ... (the monkeys).
 Likely that it evolved after the development of
language.

12. What does Oscar think?
“While laughter is the
best medicine, many
cancer patients prefer
chemotherapy”

13. The four senses of humour
 Self-Deprecating Humour
 Put-Down Humour
 Bonding Humour
 Observational Humour

14. You can make people laugh by...
 By behaving in an
unusual way
 By being in an
unusual place
 By being the wrong
size

15. Humour help is here
 Suffocate sarcasm
 Be frugally funny
 Join a friendly neighbourhood
 Justify your jokes
 Partake in periodic personal putdowns

16. And Now for Something
Completely Different

18. Humour in emoticons
 (_!_) = Normal Ass
 (__!__) = Big Ass
 (!) = Tight Ass
 (_?_) = Dumb Ass
 (_E=MC2_) = Smart Ass
 (_$_) = Rich Ass

19. We may never know which of our ancestors it
was, living in the long ago world of the tribal
hunter gatherer, that first started making jokes and
laughing at them.

20. The End