Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 979, Types of Humor.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 979.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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This episode is a dialogue between Kyle and Paulina about kinds of humor, things that make you laugh.
Let's get started.
Are you watching that sitcom again?
It's so stupid.
There's nothing witty or original about the humor.
I don't need high brow jokes.
I enjoy all kinds of comedy.
You mean you like screwball and slapstick humor.
Yes, so?
So?
It's so juvenile.
I know that it's hard for people like you, who like satire, to appreciate the more wacky kinds of humor, but you might try getting off your high horse once in a while.
I'm not snooty.
I'm just discriminating.
I like comedians with a dry sense of humor, like that self-deprecating guy on that show I watch.
And this show does it for you?
You bet.
There's no accounting for taste.
Kyle begins our dialogue by saying to Paulina, Are you watching that sitcom again?
It's so stupid.
A sitcom.
S-I-T-C-O-M is a television show with a single group of characters, a single group of people who do things that are supposed to be funny.
If you remember the television show Friends, for example, which was popular in many countries around the world a few years ago, then you know what a sitcom is.
Sitcom is actually short for situation comedy, a comedy where you have the same people in different situations each week.
Kyle thinks this sitcom is stupid, meaning it's not very funny.
It's dumb.
There's nothing witty or original about the humor, Kyle says.
Witty, W-I-T-T-Y, means funny but in an intelligent way.
Not funny just because somebody falls down or just because somebody says something stupid.
Witty is an adjective used to describe humor that is clever, that is intelligent.
Kyle says there's nothing witty or original about the humor, about the things that you are supposed to laugh at in the sitcoms.
Paulina says, I don't need highbrow jokes.
I enjoy all kinds of comedy.
A joke is something that is told to make you laugh.
Usually a short story, often just a sentence or two.
Highbrow H-I-G-H-B-R-O-W is refers to something that is more intelligent or sophisticated than the average person, or the average, in this case, joke.
Highbrow refers to things that are very intellectual in nature, things that people think are very intelligent.
Paulina says she does not need highbrow jokes.
She enjoys all kinds of comedy, C-O-M-E-D-Y.
Comedy is a category of movies or television shows or theatrical plays or anything really that makes you laugh.
The category of comedy includes anything that is supposed to be funny.
Kyle says, you mean you like screwball and slapstick humor?
Screwball S-C-R-E-W-B-A-L-L is a somewhat old-fashioned term nowadays to refer to comedies that are silly.
We might use also the adjective goofy, G-O-O-F-Y, the sorts of things that a child might laugh at.
A lot of comedies by one of the great comedians of the 20th century, Jerry Lewis, were screwball comedies, silly comedies.
Slapstick, S-L-A-P-S-T-I-C-K, humor, is humor that involves physical actions.
Someone walking down the street and suddenly falling.
That is slapstick humor.
When you laugh at someone's actions rather than what they are saying, especially if those actions involve falling down or doing something strange with their body, that would be slapstick humor.
Paulina says, So?
We use that word so as a question, when we are saying to the other person that you don't think there's anything wrong with that.
For example, you say to your wife this is the third time this week that we have had dinner at McDonald's.
The idea behind this statement is that you're not happy about that or you think that this is strange.
Your wife, however, may say, so.
When she says that, she's saying that there's no problem with that.
That there should be no complaint related to that fact.
You can also say, so what?
Meaning, why is that important?
Paulina says, yes, so.
Kyle says so.
The way that Kyle responds to Paulina's so by saying so indicates that he's surprised that she doesn't think this is important.
He's surprised at the fact that she doesn't think there's anything wrong with what they were just talking about.
Kyle says these comedies are so juvenile.
To be juvenile J-U-V-E-N-I-L-E means to be immature something you would expect out of a child or a teenager, not from an adult.
Paulina says Satire S-A-T-I-R-E is a type of humor that copies or exaggerates something else to make fun of it.
It's A kind of humor that sometimes can be done in a mean way, in a negative way, to make people laugh at something, but often to make them think about why this is a strange thing and why perhaps we should change it.
Satire is a kind of humor that is also a commentary on the way that we live our lives, often a negative commentary that is, of course, also meant to be funny.
Paulina says that Kyle likes satire, which some people might consider a more intelligent kind of humor, but that she likes wacky kinds of humor.
Wacky, W-A-C-K-Y, is similar to screwball comedy.
It's comedy that is silly, the sort of thing that a young child might find funny.
As an adjective, wacky also means crazy, weird, unpredictable, unexpected.
Paulina says that Kyle should try getting off his high horse once in a while.
The expression to get off your high horse means to stop acting superior, to stop thinking that you are better than other people.
If you can imagine someone on a horse riding by people who are walking, you get the idea that the person on the horse is higher and perhaps thinks that he's better than the people down below who are walking.
Paulina is telling Kyle that he should not act so superior about what kind of humor he likes.
Kyle says I'm not snooty.
I'm just discriminating.
To be snooty S-N-O-O-T-Y means to be mean to others because you think you are better than they are.
Another word we might use here is snobby, S-N-O-B-B-Y.
A snob, S-N-O-B, is a person who thinks that they're better than other people.
A more informal way of saying this is to be stuck, S-T-U-C-K, up.
Stuck up is an expression you would probably hear more often in high school among young people, but you could also use it in this case as well.
Kyle says he is discriminating.
To be discriminating here means to be selective.
To discriminate can be A positive thing.
I am very picky, I'm very choosy.
I'm very selective about the things that I like.
I don't like everything.
I like only certain things.
Discriminate can also be used in a negative way to refer to the treatment of someone based on perhaps, the color of their skin or their sex, whether they're male or female.
That sort of discriminating is a bad thing, we usually believe.
However, here it's used to mean selective.
Kyle says I like comedians with a dry sense of humor, like that self-deprecating guy on that show I watch.
A dry, D-R-Y, sense of humor is comedy that is considered perhaps a little bit more intellectual.
A dry sense of humor would involve jokes that someone tells you in perhaps even a serious way.
You have to then figure out that it's supposed to be funny.
That's the general idea here.
Kyle says he likes a certain comedian who is self-deprecating.
To be self-deprecating means to say bad things about yourself, but doing it in such a way that you are, in this case, being funny.
Self-deprecating is usually considered a good quality in someone, not just someone who's trying to be funny.
If we say this man is self-deprecating, we mean that he doesn't think he is superior to other people.
He understands that he's not perfect.
He recognizes his faults and problems.
Paulina says that this particular show that Kyle watches is a snooze fest.
To snooze, S-N-O-O-Z-E, means to sleep.
Fest, F-E-S-T, here relates to a festival, a celebration.
However, when Paulina uses this word combining snooze with fest, she's making a joke.
She's saying this show is very boring.
This show is not interesting.
This show will make you fall asleep, it's so boring.
In fact, the next thing Paulina says is, that guy bores me to death.
To bore, B-O-R-E, someone to death, means to make someone feel very bored.
To make someone feel very uninterested.
Kyle says, and this show does it for you.
The expression to do it for you here means to satisfy you, to give you something that you are looking for.
Some people, for example, like to go to Disneyland because they like to ride on the big rides.
And Paulina says Kyle then says This is an old expression.
There's no accounting A-C-C-O-U-N-T-I-N-G for taste.
T-A-S-T-E is used when another person has very different likes and dislikes from you.
It's used when another person likes certain things that you don't like and that you don't think anyone perhaps should like.
However, you don't want to continue talking about it perhaps, or you don't want to continue criticizing the other person.
So you say somewhat insultingly really there's no accounting for taste, meaning everyone has things that they like and dislike, and there, in a sense, is no real rational way for explaining why some people like some things and other people like other things.
However, when you say this expression, you are sort of insulting the other person.
You're saying, well, You have really bad tastes.
That is, you have very bad preferences.
You like things that you shouldn't like.
But there's no way for me to explain that.
That's what's meant by the phrase, there's no accounting for something.
There's no way of trying to explain it.
And so I won't try.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Are you watching that sitcom again?
It's so stupid.
There's nothing witty or original about the humor.
I don't need highbrow jokes.
I enjoy all kinds of comedy.
You mean you like screwball and slapstick humor?
Yes, so?
So?
It's so juvenile.
I know that it's hard for people like you, who like satire, to appreciate the more wacky kinds of humor, but you might try getting off your high horse once in a while.
I'm not snooty.
I'm just discriminating.
I like comedians with a dry sense of humor, like that self-deprecating guy on that show I watch.
That show is a snooze fest.
That guy bores me to death.
And this show does it for you?
You bet.
There's no accounting for taste.
The writer of our witty, humorous dialogues is the one and only Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
