Types of Humor Humor

Ages and the later four cardinal humor of the body were blood, phlegm, choler yellow bile and melancholy black bile. The variant mixture of this humor in different men determined their temperaments, their physical and mental qualities. In the 16 th century, humor means an unbalanced mental condition, a mood, or an unreasonable caprice, or fixed folly or vice. In the 18 th century humor was first applied on the subject matter of laughter; for example comic writing, now, it is widely used as a generic term for everything that appeals laughter.

2.2.1 Types of Humor

The type of humor varies according to their factor. There are humor which being categorized by the origin of the humor American humor. Japanese humor, Iran humor, Indonesian Humor, etc. Humor of Nationality means the humor which occurs because of the specific culture in certain nation. Their main factors are the similarities of language, way of life, and custom. Each of the nations also has the specific forms of humor for example: American people prefer humor forms such as Wit, Sarcasm, and satire while countries like Indonesia prefer humor such as slapstick, Farce and Buffonary. Humors are also being categorized because of their presentation in media. They were categorized into visual, spoken, and written humor. Visual humor relies on the visual to provoke laughter. Paint pictures in the mind of the reader and listener. Often, written humor paints stronger visual images in the mind of the reader than spoken humor does in the mind of the listener. The examples of visual humor are visual puns, visual gags, parody and pantomime. Spoken humor is a humor which being presented orally. It’s usually presented in informal situation between friends. Written humor relies almost entirely on the words and placement of those words. Spoken humor, in addition to words, adds delivery style into the mix. Because of the impact of delivery, spoken humor has more options, more flexible and often funnier than written humor. The example of spoken humor was anecdotes. Although the spoken humor is usually funnier, sometimes the written humor has more impact. The specific word choices able to make the written form of humor become more powerful than the spoken form. The written humor generally have 2 types, they were humor of situation and humor of word. Benton 1968:178 1 Humor of Situation Humor of situation is called humor of an expected happening. This kind of humor mostly shows the situation to arouse laughter. Situational humor depends on place for its comedy. For instance, the SitCom is situational humor. Such comedies depend on where the person is, or what the person is doing to be funny. Some classic bits of situational humor are Lucy and the candy factory or Vitametavegamin. Preposterous places for things to happen are situational humor. To enjoy this humor, people should see the situation in order to understand the true humorous expression which is embedded in a dialogue, utterance, or author comments. 2 Humor of Word Humor of words can be enjoyed without consider the situation because the humor of words uses funny words to arouse laughter. The basic principle used to create most of humor of word is by finding connections and relationships. In the movie Vegas Vacation, Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold worked the principle of alternate word meanings to the max when his family visited Hoover Dam. The tour guide introduces himself with something like: “Welcome. I’m your dam tour guide. Please don’t wander off the dam tour. But let me know any time you have a dam question.” Humor of words takes many forms. It can be gently and kindly, or it can be harsh and biting.

2.2.2 Form of Humor