DIVERSE HUMOUR

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 18, 15 October 1927, Page 27

DIVERSE HUMOUR

SOME EXAMPLES

Dominion Special Service.

London, August 18.

Almost all jokes have certain characteristics. Perhaps the most easily seen characteristic is incongruity, as exemplified by the African potentate who wore nothing but a loin cloth, tall hat, and spats. Mixed with the sense of incongruity is a certain amount of self-conceit on the part of tile listener. I-Ie is amused because it' pleases him to feel that he knows better than that. Other jokes involve a play upon words; for example, the schoolboy howler, which, to be amusing, has to be just sufficiently wrong. At a Rotary lunch this week Mr. Robert Gladstone gave instances of various types of humour Illustrating incongruity, he told of a short-sighted bishop who confirmed four knobs on the communion rail; and of a Cockney woman who, seeing in a shop window a pig’s head with a lemon in its mouth, exclaimed: “Ah, that reminds me; I promised to buy Alf a pipe!” Then there was the story of a lady who saw donations being handed to a man who looked as if he had seen better days. She gave him a shilling “for charity,” and next day he handed her back a pound, whispering, “Charity won !’’ Coming to play upon words, Mr. .Gladstone told of a cowboy who, applying iof an insurance policy, said he had had no accidents. “But you had your ribs kicked in by a mule, and voii nearlydied when a snake bit you,” he was told; “don’t you call those accidents?” “Naw; they did it a’ purpose!” The howlers be quoted included Ihe following:—Salome was a wicked woman who pulled off her clothes and danced in front of Harrod’s. A demagogue is a vessel containing gin and other liquids. (“Which, I dare say, is not so far wrong,” commented Mr. Gladstone.) Esau was a hairy man who wrote fables and. sold his copyright for a bottle of .potash.