How to Tell If Someone is Funny: A Different Perspective
When you hear the word “funny”, what do you think? Is it simply something that tickles your funny bone or does it have more to do with a person, an idea, or even an occasion? Understanding what exactly is funny and using it as a tool in your personal communication can bring about some great benefits and make life easier, not only for you but also for others.
What is funny? Answering that question can be quite difficult since there are so many definitions. Some people say that a funny quote is a funny phrase, others a funny quote is funny when used in the right situation, still others say that a funny quote is funny if it accurately expresses the speaker’s actual meaning, whatever that meaning may be. Let us examine those three broad categories of what is funny and how it relates to communication. Finding the exact lines or utterances that make people laugh can be challenging, but this does not necessarily mean that we cannot find the exact expression that makes us smile or cry.
Humor is subjective; some people find some forms of humor incredibly funny while others find other forms of humor extremely irritating. In addition, people respond differently to the same type of humor. For example, it is not uncommon for a joke that makes a joke of someone’s disability to be immensely funny to them, yet would be highly insulting or insensitive to another person. Understanding these different points of view will help us to find and use the appropriate jokes in our daily communications.
If you look at comedians who regularly get on stage to provide the audience with some truly spectacular jokes, you will see that the biggest factor in determining whether or not they are funny is their ability to read the audience. It is not uncommon for a comedian to make a joke about so many things that actually have nothing to do with so many things that people find funny. This is an example of knowing how to use humor to your advantage. Answering the question of how to tell if someone is funny requires understanding the difference between so-called extremely funny people who simply are not funny at all. When attempting to determine if someone is funny, you must take into account their sense of humor and the way in which they choose to tell funny stories.
For example, if Joe is telling a story about the times that he has been traded to a team where everyone else was so fat that he couldn’t figure out what his new job entailed, his sense of humor may require him to begin telling stories about so-called fat people. On the other hand, if Joe were to mention some specific numbers, such as 3, 4, 6, or seven, his sense of humor would likely require him to start talking about lottery numbers. The truth is that the only way to know how to tell if someone is funny is to try and determine what numbers they choose to refer to. Knowing how to determine if someone is telling a true story, or merely trying to up their humor score, can often be difficult.
Knowing how to tell if a person is telling a funny story or just trying to up their funny quotient requires a bit of lateral thinking. This means that you need to look for clues in the way that the comedian relates things, as well as in the choice of words that are used to describe such things. For example, if Joe tells a story about how he went bowling one day after a long day at work, the joke might take on a much more personal meaning if he started describing the way that his bowels felt after he tossed up all those potato chips. Learning how to spot these clues and putting them to good use can help you determine if the story is truly funny, or if it simply lacks the ability to be categorized as “funny.”
