UnBooks:Johnny Foreigner's Guide to British Humour
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“British Humour should be rammed down the throat, twice nightly”
~ Noel Coward on British Humour
“It is clear that humour is far superior to humor.”
~ Oscar Wilde on British Humour
“Like hell.”
~ Mark Twain on British Humour
British humour (American insubordinates: note the spelling) is the greatest of all forms of entertainment. No foreign person ever invented has truly understood this, especially not inhabitants of the good nation of America. This handy, helpful guide will let you, Johnny Foreigner, get to grips with this important part of British culture.
Before we start, two extremely important ground rules should be brought to the attention of the non-British.
- 1. We (the British) don't like you. Whether we're scared of you or we laugh at you, either way you're not our friends nearly as much as you think you are. Ha.
- 2. We (the British) don't like ourselves. We're socially inept, we've pissed our Empire up the wall, we’ve pissed off everyone in our own continent of Europe and the rest of the world and our only friends are the United States.
Collectively, the way we disguise these two loathings is called our humour.
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[edit] The History of Humour
Humour was invented in Britain in 1066 by John Cleese when he was heard to quip, "Those Normans will be making a carpet about this!" Unfortunately, he was correct, but who can guess what the French will do next?!
The development of humour was slow during the Dark Ages that followed, mostly because French people ruled the country and as everyone knows French people have a rubbish sense of humour. Lousy cheese eating surrender monkeys.
The next jump in humour was the development of actors, invented in 1584 by William Shakespeare. The use of actors allowed the spreading of humour further than ever before as their main job was to ram humour down the throats of those who came to watch them. Shakespeare has been credited with the invention of innumerable hilarious one-liners such as "Out, out damned spot", "To be or not to be, that is the question", "God, I want to die", and "I bite my thumb at thee".
True British humour only really came to the fore after the invention of the radio in 1910 by then top comedian King George V. This allowed the much more subtle play on words style of humour associated with the British today.
The current state of British humour is one of disarray. Monty Python, the famous snake-charmer and fortune-teller, has often been quoted as the biggest influence of current surreal comedy in the UK, with his own cult following. Current devotees of the Cult of Python are Queen Elizabeth II, Harold Shipman, The Mighty Boosh and Tony Blair, amongst other famous comedians.
[edit] The Essential Components of British Humour
[edit] Sarcasm
Oxford English Dictionary definition of Sarcasm: "If I could say this and roll my eyes it would be funny."
Sarcasm is the "use" of "quotation marks" around any "word" to "make" it "funnier". You will know when "Johnny Foreigner" does this because he will actually use his "fingers" to make little "speech mark things" in the "air". The thing about British "people" is that they don't always do this so it can be "hard" to tell when they are being "sarcastic". An example of "sarcasm" is "Johnny Foreigner now understands British humour completely!"
Foreigners can safely assume that any time a British man compliments another British person they are using sarcasm; the only exception is for beautiful women, whom they may actually be complimenting in an attempt to sleep with them.This is a common occurence, as the British have a lot of suppressed emotion (horniness). This explains the almost universal unattractiveness of British men to foreign women, except of course for American women, who love British men. This could be yet another sign of a complete lack of humour, or possibly the best joke ever, who knows.
[edit] Irony
Irony is the use of iron in humour. For example many people feel that the “iron lady” (note the speech marks), Margaret Thatcher was the biggest joke of her time. The person who is funny, or the comedian, will pull out an iron bar or similar and beat the listener over the head with it repeatedly. This is incredibly funny for those people watching.
An example of verbal irony would be saying "I haven't had a comedian batter me over the head with an iron bar recently" just as a comedian is walking up behind you with an iron bar.
[edit] Self-Deprecation
Self-deprecation is a form of humour unknown to the American. It is when a person says something about themselves that is nearly always true and horrible. It only works well when combined with sarcasm. For example, "I am a stupid moron" is self-deprecating but not funny, whereas the phrase "I am a genius", combined with the power of sarcasm, becomes hilarious (or not).
[edit] The Piss-Take
All British people are great fans of the piss-take. This is when one person makes fun of another in front of their mutual friends without the second person knowing they are. This is often the start of a fight; traditionally the phrase "are you taking the piss?" is said and then the two people go at it Marquis of Queensbury style, as this is how all British people fight. (For an alternative view of how two people go at it Marquis of Queensbury style, see the article on Oscar Wilde.)
If you suspect a British person of making fun of you in this way, the best thing to do is to pretend to be genuinely offended. The British do not know how to respond to actual emotion as they have spent countless years hiding theirs behind "humour".
[edit] Slapstick
This is where a group of people tie bells to their ankles, wear white clothes and trousers with braces, dance round in a circle and beat each other senseless with sticks. It is a traditional folk-style humorous dance and can be seen in many small villages in the springtime. The beating of wooden sticks is a potent symbol of fertility, as British women just love a funny guy.
[edit] Playground Humour
Playground humour is the type of humour practised in Britain only in the playground by small children below the age of 6, but in America is the dominant form of humour and is called Humor. It involves words like poo and wee and oblique reference to body parts normally hidden from view even when bathing. In playground humour adding the word 'bum' to any sentence makes it funny (in America 'yo ass' is substituted for the word bum. For instance the joke 'Knock Knock, who's there, yo ass' is, I am told, particularly popular in some states). Rule one of the Humor handbook states that a kick in the balls is the worlds funniest thing and therefore any joke or comic sketch that lacks a punchline can be ended with a kick in the balls and will always be funny. For examples of this see any Hollywood comedy billed as 'hilarious' or which the film reviewer from The Sun calls 'laugh-a-minute'. Some "interesting" facts about playground Humour:
- In the state of California any heavy or fast moving flying object must land squarely in the groin of a hapless antihero, who must then cross his eyes in extreme close up. This is the law. As above, see any Hollywood-produced comedy for confirmation of this.
- A joke that contains reference to poo but does not end with a kick in the balls is known as toilet humour.
- The film reviewer of The Sun is contracted to say that all comedies are laugh-a-minute and all thrillers are thrill-a-minute in order to get quotes in every film advertisment ever created. (The clause that stated all Romances should be dubbed shag-a-minute was written out as it didn't work. A team of highly paid script writers have been working on a universal review quote for Hollywood romances for a number of years but is yet to present a definitive answer. The current front runner is 'really crap' ).
[edit] Potty Humour
Toilet humour is at once the best and the worst of British humour. Seen as the realm of the child and the moron, toilet humour is often despised. It is also just about the funniest kind of humour there is. Unfortunately many foreigners can also make toilet humour, or indeed construct devices for harvesting it from toilets. This means that the world is full of toilet humour so for the cultivated British expert it just doesn't come up to scratch. There isn't much of an abundance of it in the United Kingdom, mainly due to the Nickelodeon Famine (2003-2105) of Ireland.
Words that constitute toilet humour, in alphabetical order, along with the literal American-English translation, are:
- Arse: Your ass
- Bum: Your ass
- Cock: Male chicken
- Chelsea: Old Age Pensioner
- France: Garlic-eating Sartre lovers
- Pooh: Bear excrement
- Shit: Victoria Beckham
- Tit: Type of bird
- Uncyclopedia: Infantile waste of time
Another example of toilet humour is its use in songs. If you make a song, there are two things you can do to make it funny. The first is take the piss out of fat people (see "The Piss-Take"), and the second is to fart in the most loud and disgusting way possible (only the Irish do this as a result of said crisis above). Both of these methods will instantly make even the most unfunny song sound more humorous than your mum.
[edit] Satire
Britons have always used their powers of humour for good, as such they direct their awesome ability to crush opponents beneath a heap of laughing people against politicians and famous people in general. This is called satire and is done mostly in the form of cartoons wrapped around bricks and thrown through windows.
Recent technological inventions like TV have increased the average satire output of the country, making the UK the largest exporter of satire in the world today. Famous satirists such as Rory Bremner get their laughs by dressing up as other people and committing crimes so the other person gets arrested. This kind of behaviour is greatly encouraged, as it keeps the police from shooting immigrants in the street.
A recent example of the successful use of satire was in the removal of the Tory party from government. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher swept into power and the nation's satirists arose as one to defeat her; 18 short years later they were successful.
[edit] The Pun
The pun is a rare and elusive creature outside of the UK. Spawned in a passionate lovemaking session between rhyme and tastelessness, the pun is often used in newspaper headlines, as a punishment and by physicists who know no other form of humour. It was used with devastating effect during the Cold War, when Hungarian physicists incorporated puns into newspaper headlines to punish Russia for invading their homeland and not being sufficiently funny.
The basic principle is to take a known and loved everyday phrase and turn it into something awful by changing the spelling or pronunciation. For example: "Pun for your life", "Be careful, he's got a pun", or "I'll punish you for that, you puny person".
It is also a cute little animal (see image).
[edit] Great British Humour Today
- Cancelled by BBC3 for another repeat of Two Pints of Lager and Packet of Crisps
[edit] Geographical Location of British Humour
The funniest part of the UK is Wales, closely followed by Ireland. These are the funniest parts of the country because they have the most jokes about them. For example, any sentence containing the words "Welsh" and "sheep" is considered extremely funny, as everyone knows Welsh people harbour deep amorous desires for our woolly little friends. They also suffer from an extremely dangerous accent that has been known to kill people through pure oratory power.
Irish people are stupid and drink too much, and it is always funny to make jokes about retards and boozers, especially jokes that sound really funny after you've had a round or two.
Cornwall comes in a close third due to the number of old people and ugly tourists, and another stupid accent. Scotland is the least funny part of the country, as the people there are scary and no one wants to fight them (or do child labour harvesting heroin in high-rises), and their accent is so scary no-one can understand them anyway (Well actually, Americans consider Scottish people funny, but we're not really talking about them now, are we?). Within England itself, the North is considered funny by southerners and the South is considered funny by northerners.
Places that everyone can make fun of include Liverpool, Birmingham, Sunderland, Dudley, France, America.
[edit] The Science of British Humour
Scientists have long been trying to determine what makes the British so great at being funny. In 1986 Murray-Gellmann proposed a new particle to add to the Standard Model of particle physics for just this purpose. Regarding it as a fundamental building block of nature, he called it the 'funny quark' or FQ and hypothesised that it was caused when a strange-matter quark swaps out one dum for a dee.
In response, Codlington (1992) published his own study declaring that the fundamental particle of humour was of a much higher order, and proposed the designation 'ironion'. The scientific debate rapidly deteriorated after Murray-Gellman was seen following Codlington around in public bellowing "FQ!" at every opportunity.
Also unresolved, and currently unstudied, is any theory explaining how British people end up with more of the fundamental particles of humour than other nationalities. Current consensus favours the hypothesis that there is something in the water in the UK. In fact, the government of the UK has been tampering with the water supply since 1924, when they began adding fluorine to help with dental care after every single dentist in the country had been killed in the First World War.
