The Seven Jokes

[novella]

Can we have a reductive discussion about humor? Please? I really would like anyone’s thoughts on this.

People are always saying how there are only seven jokes. You’ve heard that, right? That all humor is based on seven essential jokes. It might have come from Freud, I’m not sure.

Does anyone know what they are? Or where that idea came from?

A British writer enumerated them once and had a pretty good list, but I didn't think it was right. (It was someone good who worked with Peter Cook and wrote for Spitting Image in the 80s, etc.) His list was something like: slapstick, exaggeration, exploitation, class consciousness, concealment, dramatic irony. I forget what else.

These don’t seem right to me.


I’m thinking: absurd substitution (an elephant walks into a bar), unexpected inappropriate behavior,( e.g., farting, cross dressing, weird violence), puns, which open a tunnel connecting two different worlds of meaning. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Concealment might be another.

Thoughts? I'm not convinced there are seven jokes, but it's one of those myths people repeat.

 

[Ice]

Novella,

You are correct in thinking the seven jokes come from Freud's work. He published a book entitled 'Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious' which defines seven joke techniques:

Absurdity
Allusion
Analogy
Exaggeration
Faulty reasoning
Play on words
Reproach

HTH

 

[novella]

Novella,

You are correct in thinking the seven jokes come from Freud's work. He published a book entitled 'Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious' which defines seven joke techniques:

Absurdity
Allusion
Analogy
Exaggeration
Faulty reasoning
Play on words
Reproach

HTH

Oh, sincere thanks for this valuable information. I think I have that book somewhere. I had his whole oeuvre in paperback in university, so it must be somewhere.

Merci bien.

 

[Crystal]

watched the series My Family, and remembered:
Susan suggested: " don't be nice! nice? boring, boring, boring!"