Psychology of Laughter, Chapter 25

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LAUGHTER

Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D.

Many of the jokes and comic phrases we meet are logical in character, and as such may be considered as verbal or material fallacies. Thus the pun, which is commonly regarded as a joke or a witty remark, falls under the class known as fallacy of equivocation. The same word has an homonymous meaning with something which is quite different and contrasting to what the speaker intends to say, the inferior being brought into play under the covered meaning of the superior.

Take, for instance, the example of the theatrical manager who, on being complimented on the excellent voice of his prima donna, replied: "Yes, but she has a long bill." The equivocation turns on the association of contrasting images as a bill of a bird with a bill for money.

A sailor after having been fished out from the water was asked by a sentimental lady haw he felt in the water.
"Wet," the sailor replied.

An Irishman was listening to two young school teachers. One said she had thirty children, the other said she had forty children to attend to.
"Excuse me," asked the Irishman, "do your husbands come from the old country?"

        "Why can't you be good?" asked a mother of her small boy.
        "I'll be good for a nickel," he said.
        "Ah," admonished the mother. "You should copy your father, and be good for nothing."

In all these examples we have an equivocal meaning of words with a suggestion of the relation of inferiority. The speaker by a word or a phrase suggests the reverse of what he intends to say, or the meaning of the phrase is differently interpreted by the listener or interlocutor. Take another example where the joke turns on pure equivocation of words:

"This is Mike Gun," said the police officer. "The Gun is loaded."
In the morning the captain turned to the prisoner: "Gun, you are discharged and the report will be in the papers to-morrow."

A physician turned dairyman. When asked the reason for it, the physician replied that he found there was more money in the "well" than in the sick.

One wondered there were so many pickpockets about London, seeing there was a watch at every corner.
"Bah!" was the reply, "they would as willingly meet with a watch as with anything else."

In all these examples we find the play on words of equivocal meaning, with a distant suggestion of associations of inferiority, such as the drunkard Gun and the firearms, the physician, dairyman, and the well, the pickpocket and the watch he picks.

"We have a hen," said a boy boastingly, "that lays an egg for me every week."
"My grandfather," replied his chum, "is a bishop, and every week he lays a foundation stone."

The doctor said, "I must throw, up everything and take a sea voyage."―Got the cart before the horse.

An Irishman saw while passing through a graveyard the following words written on a tombstone: "I still live." Pat looked a moment, and then said: "Be jabers, if I was dead, I'd own up to it."

In all these various examples of jokes we find that the word which is played upon is one that has various meanings and the suggestion is toward the inferior, while the word is apparently used in the sense of superiority, or one of the dramatis personæ is made to look sheepish by a play on a word. The solemn and the sad are contrasted with the flippant and the gay, the intelligent with the stupid. The word is taken out of its setting, dissociated from the set of systems into which it fits and acquires its meaning, and is associated with another set with which it is incongruous, thus giving rise to the ludicrous on account of the lack of meaning and association of inferiority. The senseless, the meaningless is ridiculous because it expresses stupidity, inferiority of thought.

The fallacy known in logic as the fallacy of equivocation is often utilized to express mental inferiority, moral and intellectual. The pun is much used in the jocose and the comic:

"How does the noted healer, who cures his patients by touching them, differ from the regular physician?"
"Why he touches them before he cures them."

        Two doctors met in the hall of the hospital. "Well," said the first, "what is new this morning?"
       "I've got a most curious case. Woman cross-eyed; in fact so cross-eyed that when she cries the tears run down her back:"
        "What are you treating her for?"
        "Just now," was the reply, "we are treating her for bacteria."

A young American lady attended a banquet of physicians in London. She was decidedly good to look at, and the gentleman on one side, glancing at her, remarked to her escort: "By George, we have a duck between us."
She retorted: "Why, because I am between two quacks?"

In all these jokes or puns the ludicrous depends an the meaning of the ward with the suggestion of a state of inferiority, disclosing an incongruity of concepts, a plausible absurdity. Cross-eyedness, tears running down the back, bacteria. Touching in the sense of healing and touching in the sense of stealing. Duck a good thing, duck a bird and, hence, the further suggestion of ganders and quacks used in the meaning of fakes.

We may take occasion to point out that the joke attains its end, not only by dissociating the word from its moorings, so to say, but often accomplishing its purpose by dissociating the word itself; such, for instance, is the case in the joke on back-teria. Other examples may be adduced proving the same point:

The joke or the comic may again be constructed on the equivocal meaning of the sentence, such as the invitation to an acquaintance:

        Reports had came to the president of a well known Eastern college that one of the students was drinking more than was good for him. Meeting the student on the campus one morning, the president stopped him by the question:
        "Young man, do you drink?"
        "Well, why?" the student hesitated, "not so early in the morning."

        A farmer being sick, he and his wife came to a doctor for examination and advice. The doctor after the examination turned to the farmer and said: "My dear man, you must drink asses’ milk. If you cannot obtain asses' milk come to me and I'll help you to some."
        When the couple left the office, the wife turned to the farmer:
        "Does the doctor give suck?"

This is known in logic as the fallacy of amphibology, and often gives rise to comic sayings and ludicrous situations.

"Why do you keep the pigs in the house?" Pat was asked.
"Ain't it a good place for pigs?" was the reply.

        A nurse had been called as a witness to prove the correctness of the bill of a physician.
       "Let us get at the facts in the case," said the lawyer who was doing a cross-examining stunt. "Didn't the doctor make several visits after the patient was out of danger?"
       "No, sir," answered the nurse, "I considered the patient in danger as long as the doctor continued his visits."

Any combination of opposite, contradictory ideas and images is apt to give rise to laughter. Thus Mr. Hanna during his change of personality had to learn things over again. He saw a chicken and he was told it was a black chicken. Next time he saw a white chicken he called it a white-black chicken. At which the people laughed. Such incongruous remarks are often made by children.

A Bostonian lady asked a village grocer if he kept Browning.
"No," he answered, "I only keep blacking."

        A business man given to bankrupting asked his newly married daughter if she was happy.
        "You know, father, marriage is a failure."
        "Then," replied the father, "your marriage is a success."

       An Irish cavalryman was found by his officer dismounted from the horse.
       "Did you have orders from headquarters?"
       "No, from hindquarters."

Sometimes the accent or intonation, emphasis, of the word in the sentence are apt to give rise to equivocal meaning with a disadvantage and derogation of one of the speakers, and the result is ludicrous. Such, for instance, is the verse in the Bible:

There are the fallacies of arguing from a general rule to a special case, or conversely from a special case to a general rule, what is known a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter; or again arguing from a special case to another special case. The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion, or what is known in logic as Ignoratio Elenci, is a common source of the comic and the ludicrous.

"I have a convincing argument for woman suffrage," exclaimed a gentleman. "Are not all human beings equal? Then women should vote."

        The captain of a merchant vessel gave an Irish seaman his spyglass, of which he was very proud, and told him to clean it carefully. Pat met with an accident during the cleaning, and went to the captain, asking:
        "Captain, will yez tell me if a thing can be said to be lost whin one knows where it is?"
        "Lost when one knows where it is?" said the captain. "Why of course not. How foolish you are, Pat."
        "Well sor," said Pat, "thin yer spyglass is safe, for it's at the bottom of the sea."

An attorney for the defendant in a lawsuit is said to have handed to the barrister his brief marked: "No case, abuse the plaintiff's attorney."

A slip of memory from the general to the special, or from the special to the general may often give rise to laughter. A Miss Pigeon is misnamed Miss Bird, a Miss Creek, by association of ideas with the creak of a door, is addressed as Miss Hinge.

The fallacy known as Petitio Principii, or begging the question, or circulus in probando, is often a source of the ludicrous, as in the case of the Irish announcement, "vehicles must carry light in the darkness. Darkness begins when the lights are lit."

In the same way the rest of the logical fallacies are found in the comic, such as the fallacy of non sequitur, that of false cause, the fallacy known as non causa pro causa, and the well-known fallacy described by the phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc, the fallacy of many questions as well as the fallacy of dubious and many different meanings, are all employed in the comic and the ludicrous.

All the different forms of fallacies may be employed in the comic. The characters may directly and naïvely show their mental and moral deficiency; or the mental turpitude may be revealed by one of the characters making some remarks to turn the saying or the action to the disadvantage of the person ridiculed. The joke may take the form of a fallacy or absurdity or some distant, vague, partly obscure, and still evident enough suggestion of mental and moral inferiority.

A judge said to an advocate: "Do you see anything ridiculous in the wig?"
"Nothing but the head."

A lawyer was once addressing a jury, when the judge, who was thought to be antagonistic to his client, intimated his dissent from the arguments advanced by shaking his head. "I see, gentlemen," said the lawyer, "the motion of his Honor's head. Persons unacquainted with him would be apt to think that this implied a difference of opinion; but be assured, gentlemen, this is not the case. When you know his Honor as well as I do, it will be unnecessary to tell you that when he shakes his head there is really nothing in it.”

A rich contractor was discussing the instability of the world. "Can you account for it?" he asked.
"Well, not very clearly," was the response, "unless we suppose it was built by contract."

In the first two examples the fallacy was pointed out that the ridiculous was not in the wig, not in the shaking of the head, but in the head of the judge, in his stupidity. In the second the fallacy of the instability of the world was referred to the bad work done by contract.

"Why are you humming that air?" "Because it haunts me."
"No wonder," was the rejoinder, "you are murdering it.”

The gentleman intimated he was musical and that is why he was haunted by airs. The rejoinder pointed out the false cause, the real cause was the murdering of the music―that the gentleman was really devoid of all musical abilities.

There is again the joke or the comic made by the process of converse reasoning. The statement is refuted by a converse statement in which the folly of the first statement stands out clear and distinct.

        The Chancellor D'Aguesseau, with all his intellect and learning, was very irresolute; his son, who was very rapid in his decisions, said to him one day:
        "Father, you know everything, and never decide upon anything."
        "My son," retorted the Chancellor, "you know nothing and decide always upon everything."

        A Scotchman put an Irishman in kilts and told Pat:
        "Do not be afraid, you will not be cold with the kilts."
        "Yes, but I may be kilt with the cold."

It was reported to Sheridan that the critic, Cumberland, had said of a performance of "The School for Scandal" that he was surprised that the audience laughed at it so immoderately, as it did not make him smile.
"Cumberland is truly ungrateful," said Sheridan, "for not smiling at my comedy; for I saw a tragedy of his a fortnight before at the Covent Garden, and laughed from the beginning to the end."

In the examples adduced we have a converse process of reasoning with a slight modification and emphasis on a central concept which throws the train of thought in a different line, in the opposite direction. The assaulted party turns the table on assailants and puts them to flight. In other words, the relation of inferiority is thrown back and reversed. The stream of thought runs in one direction and then suddenly, by a sleight of hand, so to say, by a swift turn, is made to flow in the apposite direction.

As an example of petitio principii, or of begging the question, we may take the anecdote:

        "Where do you live, Pat?" "With Mike."
        "Where does Mike live?" "With me."
        "But where do you and Mike live?" "Together."

As an example of non sequitur may be taken the problem:
The ship is 150 feet long, 25 feet deep and 20 feet wide, how old is the captain's wife?

This may be matched by the statement of the Irish beggar:
"Give me something to eat; I am so thirsty that I do not know where I am going to sleep to-night."

Another statement is of the same type and no less ludicrous:
The American Indians have such sharp eyesight that they can hear the tramp of a horse at a great distance.

As an example of non causa pro causa may be taken the following from Lucian:
A fool was bitten by many fleas. He put out the light and said, "Now you no longer see me."

A juvenile judge asked a delinquent boy: "Was your father in a state of intoxication when your mother hit him with a rolling pin?"

Two different questions are here rolled into one. The answer "Yes," as well as the, answer "No," would still imply the affirmation of at least one of the statements.

As another example in which the inappropriate cause, inferiority, and stupidity of the actors stand out clearly may be taken the following anecdote:

A lady was bragging that she had overthrown her enemy in a lawsuit. One of her servants, standing by, said he took a wrong sow by the ear, when he meddled with her ladyship.