Humor

The juxtaposition of incongruous concepts always makes me laugh. A lot of things tickle my funny bone and one of my favorite types of humor is political satire. There is an abundance of it on social media as well as television programs specializing in the work of several well known comedians. When comments are cleverly constructed, they can be funny regardless of one's political point of view.

Among the many types of humor I found listed on the internet was: slapstick, parody, spoof, satire, irony, sarcasm, farce, black comedy and surrealism. A play on words such as puns, double entendre, misunderstandings, flawed plans, out of context, and mockery are some of the devices used to make us laugh.

I rarely remember jokes so never pass them on, but for some reason, the following has stayed with me for years.

An acquaintance was listening to a radio broadcast of a game between her favorite baseball team and a rival. A dear friend of hers phoned to chat and my acquaintance told her she couldn't chat just then, she was listening to the game on the radio and the score was 1 to 1.

The friend asked, “Who's winning?”

I read somewhere that President Reagan kept a file of 3x5 cards with jokes and one liners on them and he's well known for always being ready to tell a joke. Lincoln was famous for telling stories, but I think they usually served to underline a point of view.