 Comedy: August 03, 2005 Issue [#532] |
  Comedy
This week: Edited by: Melissa is fashionably late!  
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Life throws us curve balls, running us through a gambit of emotions. The best emotion of all is happines, and nothing envokes happiness more than laughter. There is a science to making others laugh, and it is through that science that comedy has evolved.
This edition of the Comedy newsletter will cover the science and elements of paraprosdokian.
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Hello Writing.com Comedy Newsletter readers! 
Please allow me to introduce myself. Some of you may already know me, so bear with the introduction. Some of you may think you know me, but really don't, so pay attention. And to the rest of you who don't know me, have never met me, or spoken to me, this paragraph's just for you!
I've been a member of Writing.com for close to 3 years, and a moderator for about 2 1/2 (give or take a few days), and a writer pretty much my whole life. I've previously written for the Horror/Scary Newsletter and have a love of popular authors in that genre, including but not limited to Stephen King. While I love reading that genre, I found that I was absolutely incapable of writing anything remotely scary. I've found that throughout most of my life, I have been more successful in making people laugh than anything. I find humor where there shouldn't be any, and am sometimes scolded for laughing at inappropriate times (like in the middle of a fight with my husband). So, I figured, what better genre to write a newsletter for than comedy?
Now that the introduction is over and all of the formalities are out of the way, I should warn you that my stay as a newsletter editor is temporary. I'm due to be your editor through the end of September, unless for some reason a permanent spot opens up. We'll have to play it by ear until then.
Onto the real reason I'm your Comedy newsletter editor... helping you learn the science involved in making others laugh. This science includes verbal and non-verbal techniques in humor. Some non-verbal styles include slapstick, deadpan, or practical jokes. Since writing requires more verbal than non-verbal techniques, I thought I'd cover a few of them over the course of my newsletters.
Many of us speak or write through figures of speech. When I tell my husband, Jason, that I'm going to crown him I don't mean that I'm going to make him a king.  Crowning him could mean several things. I could literally put a crown on his head (fat chance of that!), I could treat him in a manner of one who wears a crown, or I could give him a good whap upside the head (not that I would ever really do that, even if I feel like it sometimes).
Another type of figure of speech is a paraprosdokian. A paraprosdokian uses an unexpected ending to a phrase as a means of humor or drama. A good example of this would be:
Knowing a surprise waited for me at home was torture, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
You can go further into paraprosdokian by using a humerous triple. This technique is popular in comedy. A humerous triple is a joke consisting of three statements. The first two statements follow a pattern, and the third statement deviates from that pattern.
The most recent use of the humerous triple that I thought was successful was in the movie Charley and the Chocolate Factory. Willy Wonka and his guests get in the boat to take a tour of the factory. They pass three rooms:
Clotted cream
Coffee cream
Hair cream
We know that clotted cream and coffee cream are foods, but hair cream is not.
"What's hair cream for?" one of the mothers asks.
"Softening and moisturizing," said Willy Wonka, while fluffing his hair.
This humerous triple got quite a laugh from the audience I was watching the movie with.
You don't have to use just three items to do a humerous triple. You can do a triple with three, four, five, or as many items as you deem necessary.
Many of us use figures of speech in our everyday lives. What are some that you frequently use? How about examples of humerous triples or paraprosdokian?
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