Hints on Humor

Just telling jokes doesn’t make a man a wit; more often it makes him a half-wit. Humor means fitting your fun to the matter at hand, and when you personalize it, it sounds yet more realistic. The best humor deals with humans. Mark Twain endeared himself by letting the hot air out of do-gooders, political humbugs, and hokum peddlers. Will Rogers became the czar of sarcasm by criticizing Congress. By digging at its members’ delusions of grandeur, he made them sound more human.

Recently-have you heard any good ones panning Congressional nonsense? We seem to have let television set the pace, a medium in which commercial competition is so keen that everything’s turned sacred. Sass and satire have been censored lest they offend a sponsor or the Federal Communications Commission. Sponsors shy from a dental patient depicted as saying one small “Ouch!”-lest all the D.D.S. within hearing ply the network with complaints that the commercial will create dental chair cavities.

A public speaker is pretty much his own boss free from sponsor responsibilities and never has he had a better opportunity to return us to the lusty ways of self-expression. There are of course taboos that even seasoned satirists respect: Will Rogers abided by these good rules:

It’s a poor story if some woman blushes with embarrassment; some heart carries away an ache; something sacred is made to sound common; a man’s weakness provides the cause for laughter; profanity is required to make it funny; a little child is brought to tears; or everyone can’t join in the laughter.

Tags: public speaking

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