[lit-ideas] Re: OLD JOKES
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:46:56 -0500
CK:
>>Humor, like vernacular language itself, is generational.
Not so sure I agree. Certainly there's topical humor, which might be more or
less topical in a generational sense, but I wouldn't compare it to generational
slanguage, which often seems to function mostly as a kind of identity marker.
Humor, as we all know, can be verbal, physical, ironic, cruel, silly,
disjunctive, contradictory, or nonsensical (and probably in some other ways
that I can't think at the moment), and we all seem inclined to respond more or
less so to particular types of humor, but I would argue that young people are
responding as all people do, to one of those qualities. And while it is true
that a young person is less likely to understand the travails of an old age,
and consequently (perhaps) not appreciate so fully the humor implicit in jokes
about aging, I don't see that as essentially generational in the sense that
each generation puts it's heroes on the pop charts.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: carol kirschenbaum
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2007 5:10 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: OLD JOKES
Yo!
It took just one month to obliterate my dual status--old and a student. Now
that I don't have to pretend to share my sense of humor with students, am I
free to analyze humor, thereby destroying any sense of it? Yes, I am, declares
my inner (and outer) elder. Now we are one.
Humor, like vernacular language itself, is generational. Much of it today
depends on TV. Actually, that's true for my era, too (anyone here remember
riffing on "ooh! ooh!" from "Car 54"?) Thing is, the 20s and 30s of today have
no memory of the boomer's jokey stuff. Our jokey memories extend back only to
our parents' 40s or so.
For a while, I kept up and volleyed back to the 20ish kids in their lingo.
Shock and awe. I fit in. But for how long could I keep up the ruse? Ach phooey.
Too much energy.
Carol
On 7/13/07, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Grumpy old men may not be able to help it, as age could affect their sense
of humour, scientists have found."
"A study by Washington University in St Louis found older people find it
harder to understand jokes than students."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6897023.stm
Hrrrumph! (as Erin would say)
Mike Geary, wholly composed of 13 billion years old atomic particles in
Memphis, but everyday discovering new things under the sun, or maybe just not
remembering them from an hour ago.
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