How is wit different from humour? I am trying to think about irony in literature and critical distancing in general.

Peter




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2021 01:10PM by drpeternsz.

Here's an example from a Top 10 list I wrote once, Why they don't let dogs in the Catholic Church"

The last item on the list was "Constant petitioning of the Pope to canonize St Fido the Good Boy"

My friend suggested "St Fido the Good Shepherd"

Mine was funny, his was witty

It's a question of degree of subtlety and aptness. Humour is more obvious and immediate, wit requires a second's thinking about to appreciate - you often have to link it into something else you already know (in Johnny's example, the facts that Christ is The Good Shepherd and that dogs are used to shepherd)

PS Shakespeare said 'Brevity is the soul of wit' and he was right.

1. ingenious humor: apt, clever, and often humorous association of words or ideas, or a capacity for this

2. speech or writing showing wit: speech or writing that shows an apt, clever, and often humorous association of words

============

That's from Encarta's on-line dictionary, and it bears out what folks have said (above). WIT is "apt, clever" but not necessarily funny.

Other attempts to define WIT emphasize something being "elegantly" expressed, or said "in an unusual and striking way," "with a surprising association of ideas" -- again, humor (funny-ness) is not required.

And of course, lots of humor is devoid of wit, as so defined.

PPS: Dorothy Parker said "Brevity is the soul of lingerie."

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simply put I think humour is on the surface and wit is provoked by thought.

I am enjoying the responses people are posting

Peter

Bob Hope, funny...Bing Crosby, witty.

Bill Cosby, funny...Stephen Wright, witty.


Les

Thinking about it again, are they mutually exclusive or is wit not just a catgory of humour, as distinct from, say, slapstick.

PS Another example of wit - Rodney Dangerfield 'Life is just a bowl of pits'



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2005 01:58AM by marian2.

marian2, I'm not sure.......I can't decide if it is a subcategory or not.

Can we have Wit devoid of humor?

I would say that WIT is a particular type of humor.

Certainly you need a sense of humor to appreciate wit.

Humor explained is never funny.


Les

Humor results when society says you can't scratch certain things in public, but they itch in public.

This is a topic for Socrates, what is the meaning of .......Plato: Wit is just a FORM of humor?

Witticisms directed at individuals


Wit requires that the listener have some knowledge of the targeted individual; if the listener does not know, or know of, the targeted individual the witticism will lack impact. The witty remark conveys enmity directed at the targeted individual, but falls short of a vicious attack. The quip directs attention to an absence of a trait that it was assumed the targeted individual possessed: intelligence, morality, decency… The quip questions the individual’s possession of one or more of these traits.

Witty remarks must contain an element of truth, the allegation may be unlikely, but it must be possible.
The quip is a poisoned seed planted, anticipating growth. Hopefully, the listener will repeat the quip to his peers, who in turn will repeat the quip, until it reaches the ears of the targeted individual.
It is repeated because it contains slander that makes the listener smile.
Wit, directed at another individual requires patience, the right time, the right place, the right person to deliver the quip too. Witticisms are best delivered when the targeted individual has committed a faux pas, giving creditability to the quip that the targeted individual is lacking.

Humor is inclusive; wit is exclusive- the intent of slander is to define the targeted individual, as ‘Not one of us.’

Wit is normally associated with high brow, urban folk-not true. Rural witticism is rollicking and not for mixed company, but it certainly make its point.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2005 01:32PM by jerrygarner7.

Humor explained is never funny.


Wit cuts without blood.


Les

I don't know if I would agree that wit would be so esoteric.

Sat:

Esoteric, no, but a general knowledge of the subject
is mandatory. A quip without a background is a phrase waiting for definition.
If you write a quip directed at persons or events in your region,
the bite would elude me. It would be general information and
the wit would not be recognized.

But is that wit, or ethnocentric, egocentric, perspective?

What about the gestures when using your wit? Where does that play?

At one time I had no idea what All Your Base Belong To Us meant, but now that I do it was not witty. Other people think it is hilarious, some think wit, as I said it was niether to me. So what is it?

wit
Wit is a form of intellectual humour, based on manipulation of concepts; a wit is someone who excels in witty remarks, typically in conversation and spontaneously, since wit carries the connotation of speed of thought. Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker have the status of archetypal 19th and 20th century wit — to the extent of having the remarks of others attributed to them. As in the wit of her set, the Algonquin Round Table, witty remarks may be cruel (as in many epigrams), and perhaps more ingenious than funny. A quip is an observation or saying that has some wit but perhaps descends into sarcasm, or otherwise is short of point; a witticism also suggests the diminutive. Wit often suffers on being relayed (you had to be there). Wit is perhaps more characteristic of French and Jewish humour, to give two examples, than of English speakers; though there certainly are identifiable Australian and Irish styles of wit.

Wikipedia

What You Say?

All Your Base sure ain't wit......and of itself, initially at least, is funny in the manner that bad translations are.

What I find hilarious is how pervasive it has (had) become !

Humor explained is never funny.

"When a girl goes wrong, men go right...
after her."---Mae West


Les

"Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?" Mae West



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2005 12:49PM by drpeternsz.

now THAT'S comedy !

No one ever called somebody a half-humor....

wit Kathleen Turner

Time to get serious

Thanks Chuck, you’re edging us to the definitions.
So, half-humor describes a Good Humor Man with a truck that is
half-empty?
No humor is an empty ice cream truck?
Humor has something to do with ice cream, were getting closer.

Wits being whimsical whiz where they wanta.
Half-wits whiz on the side of Good Humor Trucks. (See how wit,
and humor, even half-wits, insist on lumping themselves together.)

Bungalow Bar
Tastes like tar
The more you eat
The sicker you are

re: Mae West

Remember men, we're fighting for this woman's honour; which is probably more than she ever did.

---Groucho

ok don't get it - difference between wit and humour - what are the differences?

You make wit sound like it is the same as sarcasm to me? Is it? I wouldn't like to think so. But if it is - it is.

Someone, somewhere (I must be tired) compared it to slander - isn't that a bit much or were they being witty?

Marie, wit and slander have nothing to do with each other.

As a matter of fact, if wit and slander were in the same room they wouldn't even talk to each other, let alone rub elbows.


Les

Thanks, Les. Otherwise, I may have missed the point. I always appreciate your balanced approach.

what Les wrote was witty

more so than funny, but he did say elbows, which always gets a laugh out of me

Who were the wits among Shakespeare's characters?

Oops - I have friends that talk like that every day...I don't even notice it anymore -:)

> Oops - I have friends that talk like that every day

You have friends that talk like Shakespeare, or Johnny?


Les

Both

I have friends that talk like Groucho.


Les

I have friends that talk like Marx, and May.

Time wounds all heels.
---Groucho


Les

Posting all at once makes for interesting conversations! Insomia...to-nite.

2 witty remarks about wit:

She'll soon be a wit, she's halfway there already.

He's almost a wit - just the extra t to get rid of.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2005 10:36AM by marian2.

What's another word for Thesaurus?

---Stephen Wright


Les



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2005 10:27AM by lg.

Mark Twain.......................

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.
- Notebook, 1885

Wit, by itself, is of little account. It becomes of moment only when grounded on wisdom.
- quoted in Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field, Fisher

Wit and Humor--if any difference it is in duration--lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, brief, and can do damage--the other fools along and enjoys the elaboration.
- Mark Twain's Notebook

was looking up tropes. I found this Chiasmus:

Chiasmus
A rhetorical figure in which elements are presented in the order ABBA. It's named for the Greek letter chi (which looks like an "X"). The "X" suggests the crossing that characterizes the figure. Some examples:

This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.


[On The Beggar's Opera, a fabulously successful play written by John Gay and produced by John Rich:] It made Gay rich and Rich gay.

>This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords

Ah, but is that chiasmus, or antimetabole?

[www.chiasmus.com]

[humanities.byu.edu]

Chiasmus=ABBA='Danching Queen?"

Wit, by itself, is of little account. It becomes of moment only when grounded on wisdom.
- quoted in Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field, Fisher


I think Mr. Clements makes a good point here.


Les

If antimetabole is a kind of chiasmus, then the question is mute.

Better to be less of a wit than be witless, huh, Les?

>If antimetabole is a kind of chiasmus, then the question is mute.

I'm guessing you mean moot, but that was the point:

(From the rhetoric link.)

chiasmus - ki-az'-mus Gk. "a diagonal arrangement"

Repetition of ideas in inverted order.

Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order (not to be mistaken with antimetabole, in which identical words are repeated and inverted).


Even wittier is Antanaclasis:

"Your argument is sound...all sound." —Benjamin Franklin

"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm." —Vince Lombardi

Jonathan Swift on wit:

’T is an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery ’s the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.

My favorite example is from Groucho Marx:
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like bananas."

Moot, that was hilarious.

I think it's mute, too.

It's not Moo"t", it's Moo

just ask Joey Tribbiani

It's like a cow's opinion, it doesn't matter

and what about the Statue of Limitations,
where you can go up in the crown but not the torch?

Huh?

the definition of moot is to bring up a debate contrary to mute which is silent

I guess we're at wits end

Now wits gain praise by copying other wits
As one Hog lives on what another sh---.

Alexander Pope

> I guess we're at wits end

Wit is an endless well; it's purpose that's left.


Les

Resurrecting some old Emily


Some people they take comfort here
and write on bathroom walls
for those that do, they roll their sh*t
into the shape of balls

Some others they seek knowledge here
and read these words of wit
and those who like this wisdom get
to eat the balls of sh*t

(from The B.M. of E.D with no T.P)




More from Emily:

Your cigarettes, do not dispose
in urinals tonight
it makes them very soggy and
it makes them hard to light


Continuing to scrape more paint off the restroom walls of the Amherst Public Library and Grill.....who knows what might be found?



When using public toilet bowls
I squat above the seat
alas that does not work in here
the crabs can jump six feet

Johnny:

Since you've broached the subject, I first saw this scribbled on a Boys' room stall in PS 25 many years ago:

Here I sit broken hearted,
Tried to sh*t but only farted.

Regards,

JoeT

What was Emily doing in the PS 25 boys room?