h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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What, women want men to be intelligent as well!!?? Sheesh.

Good point though.

I can only guess that asking for a sense of humour includes the 'package deal' of intelligence also happening.

Simply asking for intelligence might end up with some big-brained guy who laughs at all of his lame jokes!


az

ps
I *am* just teasing Noggin relentlessly - he is totally lovely and I love him to pieces. And he has the sexiest brain I have ever had the good fortune to come across. But his jokes!

Brains are sexy?

Y.

(off to check my anatomy books)

Only if kept in a jar on a shelf and seductively mood-lit from behind...

That is one thing I have learnt in my search for NFG's, women do really like guys who make them laugh.

>> mind you he also laughs at all of his jokes (which are mostly pathetic <<

Erm.

One of the most important things in my current relationship is that we "get" each other. One of the most important things that caused the break-up of my marriage was the mismatch of our senses of humour.

Pretty well everyone considers themselves to have a GSOH. Unfortunately, everyone also considers themselves to be a great lover and a good driver. There's a difference between perception and reality.

My sense of humour genreally revolves around silly wordplay. Fortunately, so does my girlfriend's so we have SOH compatibility. My exwife found farting and talking animals funny, so a film like Eddie Murphy's Dr Dolittle had her in stitches, but saying "knock knock" "who's there?" "Nicholas" "Nicholas who?" "Nicholas girls shouldn't climb trees" would leave her cold.

I would hesitate to say, though, that my ex-wife doesn't have a sense of humour...it's just different to mine.

RF*

* But really, it's pretty crap.

Sense of humor and intelligence aren't necessarily related. There are a couple of examples from my own life that disprove the relationship.

1) My best friend will be the first person to tell you he isn't very intelligent, but he's one of the funniest people I know.

2) I attended a couple of Mensa functions when a friend of mine was trying to convince me to join them. And while I certainly found everyone there to be very intelligent, I did not find them to be funny. Quite the opposite, in fact. They seemed to be preoccupied by weak puns, which should rightfully be considered the lowest form of humor.

Like that "Nicholas" joke, for instance...

>> ..puns, which should rightfully be considered the lowest form of humor. <<

Rightfully? Why, because someone said so?

Seriously, if you really think about it, punning is a complex thought process that operates on many levels giving new depths of meaning and possibility. Not to mention the positive social and mental health aspects of shared humour or the harmless emotional agenda behind the punsters smile.

The conception and initiation of a pun has always required mental multi-tasking and those who lack the imagination to appreciate them or create their own are likely just lazy or dull. Those who don't get puns have always resorted to using old class distinctions to portray the witty use of words as symptomatic of a lower class education and intelligence. As if class distinction was ever more important or relevant than intelligence and wit.

But nothing could be further from the truth. And in these days of cyberspatial shorthand the pun has become an essential tool for any good communicator wishing to say much with fewer words, for the thymes they are a changling.

Now open your mined and say 'Awe'.

~jwf~

<> (RF)

I agree that 'getting' each other's sense of humour is quite fundamental in having a happy and satisfying relationship - though I don't think SOH's need to be exactly the same. As you say, what is important is that we can 'get' the other person's humour.

As for sexy brains, I know that Ben knows what I mean when I say that. So perhaps I'll wait for her to come along and explain it . . .

Blathers, I quite agree that very intelligent people are often *not* funny, though I've yet to meet a person who was very funny and not intelligent (by intelligent I mean smart, clever, etc, not 'intellectual').

And I agree with both RF and ~jwf~ that puns are usually quite clever *and* funny.


funny ol' az

jwf: Yeah, that was their take on puns. They seemed to think they were the highest form of humor, and that anyone who didn't appreciate them just wasn't smart enough to appreciate their subtle art. They spent a lot of time congratulating and admiring themselves as a result. Mental masturbation.

But knock-knock jokes are right there with poopy jokes as the primary domain of five year-olds, and I for one was not impressed. Puns have the potential to be funny from time to time, but then again, so do poopy jokes.

azahar: <>

At this point the conversation would break down in discussing my friend, because "intelligence" is impossible to discuss among rational people, because :

1)no two people can agree on what is meant by the word,
2)it cannot be quantified or measured, and
3)everyone thinks they're brilliant.

In fact, I may find myself in a similar situation here in discussing humor for dismissing puns. Everyone thinks they have a great sense of humor, too... although I'm sure that, after blasting puns, several readers have decided mine is crap.

However, I will say that my friend has his strengths and his weaknesses, and certainly it takes a particular kind of intelligence to make it through to graduation functionally illiterate. And humor could possibly be considered another form of intelligence... and in this he had a great teacher. His mother is funnier than he is, with a sense of humor so black it absorbs all light and encapsulates her in a personal sphere of eternal night.

As Reddy said, people need to share the same sense of humour to find each other funny.
I agree with Blatherskite that intelligence & humour aren't necessarily linked. Wit & intelligence, maybe, but again it's a matter of whether you appreciate it or not.

Another important aspect is timing. I'm thinking person to person here, where sensitivity & empathy play a part, knowing when a joke will go down well & when it won't!

I posed the topic question to Mrs. Mugwump, are men funnier than women? She thought about it for a second, and said, "Yes." So I asked her why she said that, and her response was that men are funnier because, to them, everything is funny, whereas women are sensitive about certain things. Different women are sensitive about different things, but there is always something.

But that would mean that men aren't funnier, only that they find more things funny. So they don't make better comedians, just better audiences.

I would say slapstick is the lowest form of humour. Wordplay can be a rather mental effort.

The point she was making was that, because there are no off-limits topics for men, they are free to joke about anything and everything, thus getting more laughs.

I wouldn't say slapstick is a low form of comedy at all. The challenge of performing good slapstick is greater than any other form, due to the added physical requirement. See Lucille Ball, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carrey, Monty Python, and the aforementioned Gilda Radner. Do NOT see Jerry Lewis or Benny Hill.

Rowan Atkinson I do find pretty amazing. Mr Bean manages to be so damn funny, without ever a word being spoken.

<> What, and there are for women? Like what? OK, there is some humour that might offend me, but so what? That's my problem. I've told some rude and distinctly non-PC jokes in my time and my female friends usually laugh (and no one laughs louder at a rude joke than my normally very prim Grandma). Actually, I find, as a female, telling an 'off colour' joke gets a bigger laugh from women than men - men are much more likely to be offended by my unladylike language! I object to the suggestion that women are prudes - there is absolutely NOTHING that women won't talk about or indeed make jokes about (I refer you to Jo Brand's routine about an appointment with the 'Cap Nurse').

Humour is a very individual thing (as I think we have already established in previous posts). Personally, I can't stand Mr Bean and don't find it even remotely amusing. However, Rowan Atkinson in 'Blackadder' and 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' was hilarious. And as for that one man 'Indian Waiter' routine that he does - brilliant! But that's only my own personal taste.

Just to stand up for poor old RF when he's not about

Yeah, we enjoy playing with words on all sorts of levels, whether that's doing the crossword, or playing Scrabble, or whiling away a long drive thinking up ridiculous scenarii to which the end line is "No tomatoes ".

And so it follows that puns are the kind of humour we both enjoy.

Not exclusively! Although slapstick/ Mr Bean/ Jackass stuff leaves me cold .