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English Humour For Beginners
"If you want to succeed here you must be able to handle the English sense of humour."
So proclaims George Mikes' timeless exploration of this curious phenomenon. Whether it's understatement, self-deprecation or plain cruelty - the three elements he identifies as essential to our sense of humour - being witty is a way of life here.
Perfectly placed as an adopted Englishman himself, Mikes delivers his shrewd advice - helpfully divided into "Theory" and "Practice" - with comic precision. Drawing on a trove of examples from our rich comic canon, from Orwell (who said, "Every joke is a tiny revolution") to Oscar Wilde, this is the essential handbook for natives and foreigners alike.
So proclaims George Mikes' timeless exploration of this curious phenomenon. Whether it's understatement, self-deprecation or plain cruelty - the three elements he identifies as essential to our sense of humour - being witty is a way of life here.
Perfectly placed as an adopted Englishman himself, Mikes delivers his shrewd advice - helpfully divided into "Theory" and "Practice" - with comic precision. Drawing on a trove of examples from our rich comic canon, from Orwell (who said, "Every joke is a tiny revolution") to Oscar Wilde, this is the essential handbook for natives and foreigners alike.
- GenresNonfictionHumor
146 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
33 people are currently reading
178 people want to read
About the author
George Mikes
141 books55 followersGeorge Mikes (pronounced Mik-esh) was a Hungarian-born British author best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries.
Mikes graduated in Budapest in 1933 and started work as a journalist on Reggel ("Morning"), a Budapest newspaper. For a short while he wrote a column called Intim Pista for Színházi Élet ("Theatre Life").
In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for Reggel and 8 Órao Ujság ("8 Hours"). He worked for Reggel until 1940. Having been sent to London to cover the Munich Crisis and expecting to stay for only a couple of weeks, he remained for the rest of his life. In 1946 he became a British Citizen. It is reported that being a Jew from Hungary was a factor in his decision. Mikes wrote in both Hungarian and English: The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, Encounter, Irodalmi Újság, Népszava, the Viennese Hungarian-language Magyar Híradó, and Világ.
From 1939 Mikes worked for the BBC Hungarian section making documentaries, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he worked for the Hungarian section of Szabad Európa Rádió. He was president of the London branch of PEN, and a member of the Garrick Club.
His friends included Arthur Koestler, J. B. Priestley and André Deutsch, who was also his publisher.
His first book (1945) was We Were There To Escape – the true story of a Jugoslav officer about life in prisoner-of-war camps. The Times Literary Supplement praised the book for the humour it showed in parts, which led him to write his most famous book How to be an Alien which in 1946 proved a great success in post-war Britain.
How to be an Alien (1946) poked gentle fun at the English, including a one-line chapter on sex: "Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles."
Subsequent books dealt with (among others) Japan (The Land of the Rising Yen), Israel (Milk and Honey, The Prophet Motive), the U.S. (How to Scrape Skies), and the United Nations (How to Unite Nations), Australia (Boomerang), the British again (How to be Inimitable, How to be Decadent), and South America (How to Tango). Other subjects include God (How to be God), his cat (Tsi-Tsa), wealth (How to be Poor) or philosophy (How to be a Guru).
Apart from his commentaries, he wrote humorous fiction (Mortal Passion; The Spy Who Died of Boredom) and contributed to the satirical television series That Was The Week That Was.
His autobiography was called How to be Seventy.
Serious writing included a book about the Hungarian Secret Police and he narrated a BBC television report of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Mikes graduated in Budapest in 1933 and started work as a journalist on Reggel ("Morning"), a Budapest newspaper. For a short while he wrote a column called Intim Pista for Színházi Élet ("Theatre Life").
In 1938 Mikes became the London correspondent for Reggel and 8 Órao Ujság ("8 Hours"). He worked for Reggel until 1940. Having been sent to London to cover the Munich Crisis and expecting to stay for only a couple of weeks, he remained for the rest of his life. In 1946 he became a British Citizen. It is reported that being a Jew from Hungary was a factor in his decision. Mikes wrote in both Hungarian and English: The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, Encounter, Irodalmi Újság, Népszava, the Viennese Hungarian-language Magyar Híradó, and Világ.
From 1939 Mikes worked for the BBC Hungarian section making documentaries, at first as a freelance correspondent and, from 1950, as an employee. From 1975 until his death on 30 August 1987 he worked for the Hungarian section of Szabad Európa Rádió. He was president of the London branch of PEN, and a member of the Garrick Club.
His friends included Arthur Koestler, J. B. Priestley and André Deutsch, who was also his publisher.
His first book (1945) was We Were There To Escape – the true story of a Jugoslav officer about life in prisoner-of-war camps. The Times Literary Supplement praised the book for the humour it showed in parts, which led him to write his most famous book How to be an Alien which in 1946 proved a great success in post-war Britain.
How to be an Alien (1946) poked gentle fun at the English, including a one-line chapter on sex: "Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles."
Subsequent books dealt with (among others) Japan (The Land of the Rising Yen), Israel (Milk and Honey, The Prophet Motive), the U.S. (How to Scrape Skies), and the United Nations (How to Unite Nations), Australia (Boomerang), the British again (How to be Inimitable, How to be Decadent), and South America (How to Tango). Other subjects include God (How to be God), his cat (Tsi-Tsa), wealth (How to be Poor) or philosophy (How to be a Guru).
Apart from his commentaries, he wrote humorous fiction (Mortal Passion; The Spy Who Died of Boredom) and contributed to the satirical television series That Was The Week That Was.
His autobiography was called How to be Seventy.
Serious writing included a book about the Hungarian Secret Police and he narrated a BBC television report of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
September 5, 2023
Great book! Very insightful
October 11, 2018
I truly wanted to like this book (which is why I paid £8.99 for a mere 146 pages), but by p.17 I was cringing: my discomfort started with the line, "I found myself with a group of about six or seven people and told them a joke about homosexuals." The author goes on to explain how a passing homosexual objected to his joke, referred to the man's anger as "a gimmick", and seemed confused about why anyone would object anyway.
I struggled on, trying to engage with the next chapter entitled "What is Humour?" which included the explanation "It's no good trying to fathom why a black man looks funny ... I know several people who went to Amin's Uganda, which is full of black people, and failed to roar with laughter once" (p.22), and "This may be the funniest way of calling a woman a whore, but not, surely, the most economical" (p.23). Although I flicked ahead, scanning the text and illustrations for a more redeeming narrative, I only found more of the same, and – although I almost never fail to finish a book – I gave up soon after that.
Admittedly, I have taken these quotes out of context, but even in what might be a necessarily uncomfortable study of homophobic, racist, and sexist humour (although I'm not convinced that's what I reading), I found the author's tone arrogant and his use of such examples hopelessly outdated.
Did not finish.
I struggled on, trying to engage with the next chapter entitled "What is Humour?" which included the explanation "It's no good trying to fathom why a black man looks funny ... I know several people who went to Amin's Uganda, which is full of black people, and failed to roar with laughter once" (p.22), and "This may be the funniest way of calling a woman a whore, but not, surely, the most economical" (p.23). Although I flicked ahead, scanning the text and illustrations for a more redeeming narrative, I only found more of the same, and – although I almost never fail to finish a book – I gave up soon after that.
Admittedly, I have taken these quotes out of context, but even in what might be a necessarily uncomfortable study of homophobic, racist, and sexist humour (although I'm not convinced that's what I reading), I found the author's tone arrogant and his use of such examples hopelessly outdated.
Did not finish.
May 7, 2019
I found this book entertaining as well as insightful. Due to George Mikes explaining and elaborating where and what is humour. I love how he gives examples of Authors and famous people such as Churchill, who he's very fond of due to his sense of humour. As well as the uses of humour in different countries.
Side note: This book was written during the 1980s, meaning that some of what is written in this book was probably based on during that timeline or further, as I found some of the humours a bit bland maybe this is because I have a different perspective of what I find funny.
Side note: This book was written during the 1980s, meaning that some of what is written in this book was probably based on during that timeline or further, as I found some of the humours a bit bland maybe this is because I have a different perspective of what I find funny.
May 12, 2021
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
English Humour for Beginners: by George Mikes.
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
Quoted from blurb:-
"George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.
"English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy."
................................................................................................
"English Humour resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither of them exists. Here the similarity ends: the Loch Ness Monster seems to be a gentle beast and harms no one; English Humour is cruel.
"English Humour also resembles witches. There are no witches; yet for centuries humanity acted as though they existed. ... It’s the same with English Humour. It may not exist but this simple fact has failed to prevent thousands of writers from producing book upon book on the subject. And it will not deter me either."
"In other countries, if they find you inadequate or they hate you, they will call you stupid, ill-mannered, a horse-thief or a hyena. In England they will say that you have no sense of humour. This is the final condemnation, the total dismissal."
................................................................................................
"I doubt (as I have already explained) that there is such a thing as an English sense of humour, consequently the – say – Welsh sense of humour would be a sub-species of a non-existent genus. But that would be in the true English nonsense tradition. Until the nineteen seventies there was a coin in circulation in Britain called the half crown. There was no crown, but this disturbed no one. The English were quite happy with a fraction of a non-existent unit. In mathematics half of nothing is nothing. In humour and in British fiscal matters (the two are often identical) half of nothing is quite something."
................................................................................................
" ... Similarly, physicists can produce electricity; they know all about it; with its help they can travel in the air, on land or on the water; they can dig tunnels, remove mountains, transmit messages over thousands of miles; they may reach the moon and build miraculous computers; they can lighten our darkness and cure the sick with it; but they do not know what electricity is."
He's completely wrong there. Physicists DO know, and they do NOT perform most of the tasks mentioned; that's work of lesser professionals, who usually profit far more.
................................................................................................
The chapter titled "What Is Humour" may be better skipped by general fans of this author. In short, it isn't funny.
One may be dismayed at the thought that this would continue. But the subsection titled "Understatement" in the next chapter begins to brighten up things a bit. 'Cruelty', in the same chapter after that, is horrifying. It proceeds thence to wit and becomes better.
"The cynic is a special type of wit: he is not just a ‘distressing fault-finder’ as one dictionary defines him. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary is much better: The cynic ‘is one disposed to decry and sneer at the sincerity or goodness of human motives or actions’. This refusal to believe in human goodness is an essential factor in the cynic – whose name, by the way, comes from an ancient school of philosophy which took it, in turn, from the Greek word for ‘dog’ (kuon) because of their manners. The cynic either pulls down something lofty and noble to an everyday level, or sees the mean motive behind the noble act.
"A favourite slogan of German propaganda in two World Wars: ‘The British will fight to the last gasp of the last Frenchman.’ Or Wilde: ‘If a man is too unimaginative to produce evidence in support of a lie, he might as well speak the truth at once.’ An oft-heard comment on the United States: ‘What a great country God could make the United States – if only he had the money.’ Or Wilde again, on the infinite goodness of the Almighty: ‘Don’t you realize that missionaries are the divinely provided food of cannibals? Whenever they are on the brink of starvation, heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a nice, plump missionary.’ ... "
................................................................................................
Obviously Mikes couldn't care less about colonial subjects of British empire:-
"It is enough to spend a week or two in Britain to see that the British are not harsh and cruel people. Even if their virtues – as I have argued – are not what they used to be, cruelty is certainly not among their newly acquired vices. They are, as a nation, kind and courteous, helpful and considerate. In their colonial days they could be blindly selfish but they were rarely cruel. In any case the days of colonialism are over."
He never heard of Dyer, to mention just one name; or of Churchill deliberately refusing the ships filled with grain sent by FDR to help India when millions died of starvation, because Churchill thought they were better dead, being subhuman in his opinion!
................................................................................................
" ... ‘Jokes about the German invasion of France in 1940,’ say the authors, ‘crop up again in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Jokes about anti-Semitism in Central and Eastern Europe at the turn of the century migrate across the Irish Sea to Ulster to cross the Atlantic to the United States, where they are used against white racism or Protestant ascendancy.’"
................................................................................................
"Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon are watching the October Parade in Moscow’s Red Square.
"Alexander looks at the tanks and says: ‘If I had chariots like these, I’d have conquered the whole of Asia.’
"Caesar looks at the giant rockets: ‘If I’d had such catapults, I’d have conquered the whole world.’
"Napoleon looks up from a copy of Pravda: ‘If I’d had a newspaper like this, nobody would ever have heard of Waterloo.’"
................................................................................................
"Khrushchev and Ulbricht are going around in Moscow. Khrushchev stops a small boy in the street and asks him: ‘Who is your father?’
"‘Comrade Khrushchev.’
"‘Your mother?’
"‘The Soviet Union.’
"‘What would you like to be?’
"‘An astronaut.’
"A few weeks later they meet again in East Berlin. This time it is Ulbricht who stops a small boy in the street.
"‘Who’s your father?’
"‘Comrade Ulbricht.’
"‘Your mother?’
"‘The German Democratic Republic.’
"‘What would you like to be?’
"‘An orphan.’"
............
"Most people define a humorist as the man to whom they must tell funny stories."
............
"As tellers of dirty jokes are mostly men and their so-called victims in most cases are women, Freudians regard sex jokes as verbal rape or, at least, preparation for physical approach.
"Many of the jokes are degrading to women. The dirty joke, according to Freud, is a slightly more sophisticated form of other nasty habits: whispering dirty words to women in the street or writing up four-letter words – usually the name of the female genital organ – on walls."
............
About the author of "Alice" masterpieces:-
"Dodgson’s outward life story may be told in a few words. He was born in 1832 (the year Lear met Lord Stanley), the son of the Reverend Charles Dodgson. He spent four years at Rugby, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1850, took a first class honours degree in mathematics at Christ Church and was appointed Lecturer in Mathematics there. He stayed in that job until he retired, at the age of forty-nine. In his spare time he became a brilliant photographer – according to some, one of the best in the nineteenth century. Under his own name he wrote such books as The Formulae of Plane Trigonometry and An Elementary Treatise on Determinants. He died at Guildford in 1898, at the age of sixty-six.
"Some biographers maintain that the great event of his life was meeting Ellen Terry. She was eighteen and breathtakingly beautiful. He – it is believed – fell in love with her; some allege that he wanted to marry her. Well, it is all ‘it is believed’ and ‘some allege’ because he never talked of his feelings, certainly never proposed to Miss Terry and never wrote one single line about his feelings for her in his diary. He never married."
" .... In 1856 he met Alice Liddell when she was not yet four. He told her lots of wonderful stories inventing them when they went for walks together. One day Alice said: ‘Oh, Mr Dodgson, I wish you would write out Alice’s adventures for me.’
"He did, under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll. 180,000 copies of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass were sold in his lifetime. The books also gave many phrases to the English language and many immortal characters to English folklore, from the Mad Hatter through Humpty-Dumpty to Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Yet, icily and on innumerable occasions, he persisted in saying: ‘Mr Dodgson neither claims nor acknowledges any connections with the books not published under his name.’ He wanted to be remembered as the author of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants."
............
The author quotes some of the work, poetry, of Lewis Carroll, of which YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM is really good. So is THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER, but it's not merely funny, or rather, it's lacks the feel-good quality of the former. He quotes ETIQUETTE by W. S. Gilbert, a good one about British society. GENTLE ALICE BROWN is, on the other hand, more horror than fun, evoking disgust for any opposite opinion.
His chapter on limerick is continuation of the dirty joke chapter, and in the next one he discusses English wit by mentioning Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde and Churchill.
"Joe Kennedy, the later and late President John Kennedy’s father, was US Ambassador to Britain during the war. At a ceremonial dinner Mrs Kennedy sat next to Churchill. She had innumerable children and grandchildren and believed in a curious theory: that she could never fail to interest anyone she met because at least one of her many offspring must fascinate him. On this occasion the Prime Minister had been talking to his other neighbour for a long time. It was towards the end of dinner that he turned to Mrs Kennedy, who said to him: ‘I don’t think, Mr Churchill, that I have told you anything about my grandchildren.’
"To which Churchill replied: ‘For which, Madam, I am infinitely grateful.’"
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
English Humour for Beginners: by George Mikes.
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
Quoted from blurb:-
"George Mikes was born in 1912 in Siklós, Hungary. Having studied law and received his doctorate from Budapest University, he became a journalist and was sent to London as a correspondent to cover the Munich crisis. He came for a fortnight but stayed on and made England his home. During the Second World War he broadcast for the BBC Hungarian Service, where he remained until 1951. He continued working as a freelance critic, broadcaster and writer until his death in 1987.
"English Humour for Beginners was first published in 1980, when Mikes had already established himself as a humorist as English as they come. His other books include How to be an Alien, How to Unite Nations, How to be Inimitable, How to Scrape Skies, How to Tango, The Land of the Rising Yen, How to Run a Stately Home (with the Duke of Bedford), Switzerland for Beginners, How to be Decadent, How to be Poor, How to be a Guru and How to be God. He also wrote a study of the Hungarian Revolution and A Study of Infamy, an analysis of the Hungarian secret political police system. On his seventieth birthday he published his autobiography, How to be Seventy."
................................................................................................
"English Humour resembles the Loch Ness Monster in that both are famous but there is a strong suspicion that neither of them exists. Here the similarity ends: the Loch Ness Monster seems to be a gentle beast and harms no one; English Humour is cruel.
"English Humour also resembles witches. There are no witches; yet for centuries humanity acted as though they existed. ... It’s the same with English Humour. It may not exist but this simple fact has failed to prevent thousands of writers from producing book upon book on the subject. And it will not deter me either."
"In other countries, if they find you inadequate or they hate you, they will call you stupid, ill-mannered, a horse-thief or a hyena. In England they will say that you have no sense of humour. This is the final condemnation, the total dismissal."
................................................................................................
"I doubt (as I have already explained) that there is such a thing as an English sense of humour, consequently the – say – Welsh sense of humour would be a sub-species of a non-existent genus. But that would be in the true English nonsense tradition. Until the nineteen seventies there was a coin in circulation in Britain called the half crown. There was no crown, but this disturbed no one. The English were quite happy with a fraction of a non-existent unit. In mathematics half of nothing is nothing. In humour and in British fiscal matters (the two are often identical) half of nothing is quite something."
................................................................................................
" ... Similarly, physicists can produce electricity; they know all about it; with its help they can travel in the air, on land or on the water; they can dig tunnels, remove mountains, transmit messages over thousands of miles; they may reach the moon and build miraculous computers; they can lighten our darkness and cure the sick with it; but they do not know what electricity is."
He's completely wrong there. Physicists DO know, and they do NOT perform most of the tasks mentioned; that's work of lesser professionals, who usually profit far more.
................................................................................................
The chapter titled "What Is Humour" may be better skipped by general fans of this author. In short, it isn't funny.
One may be dismayed at the thought that this would continue. But the subsection titled "Understatement" in the next chapter begins to brighten up things a bit. 'Cruelty', in the same chapter after that, is horrifying. It proceeds thence to wit and becomes better.
"The cynic is a special type of wit: he is not just a ‘distressing fault-finder’ as one dictionary defines him. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary is much better: The cynic ‘is one disposed to decry and sneer at the sincerity or goodness of human motives or actions’. This refusal to believe in human goodness is an essential factor in the cynic – whose name, by the way, comes from an ancient school of philosophy which took it, in turn, from the Greek word for ‘dog’ (kuon) because of their manners. The cynic either pulls down something lofty and noble to an everyday level, or sees the mean motive behind the noble act.
"A favourite slogan of German propaganda in two World Wars: ‘The British will fight to the last gasp of the last Frenchman.’ Or Wilde: ‘If a man is too unimaginative to produce evidence in support of a lie, he might as well speak the truth at once.’ An oft-heard comment on the United States: ‘What a great country God could make the United States – if only he had the money.’ Or Wilde again, on the infinite goodness of the Almighty: ‘Don’t you realize that missionaries are the divinely provided food of cannibals? Whenever they are on the brink of starvation, heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a nice, plump missionary.’ ... "
................................................................................................
Obviously Mikes couldn't care less about colonial subjects of British empire:-
"It is enough to spend a week or two in Britain to see that the British are not harsh and cruel people. Even if their virtues – as I have argued – are not what they used to be, cruelty is certainly not among their newly acquired vices. They are, as a nation, kind and courteous, helpful and considerate. In their colonial days they could be blindly selfish but they were rarely cruel. In any case the days of colonialism are over."
He never heard of Dyer, to mention just one name; or of Churchill deliberately refusing the ships filled with grain sent by FDR to help India when millions died of starvation, because Churchill thought they were better dead, being subhuman in his opinion!
................................................................................................
" ... ‘Jokes about the German invasion of France in 1940,’ say the authors, ‘crop up again in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Jokes about anti-Semitism in Central and Eastern Europe at the turn of the century migrate across the Irish Sea to Ulster to cross the Atlantic to the United States, where they are used against white racism or Protestant ascendancy.’"
................................................................................................
"Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon are watching the October Parade in Moscow’s Red Square.
"Alexander looks at the tanks and says: ‘If I had chariots like these, I’d have conquered the whole of Asia.’
"Caesar looks at the giant rockets: ‘If I’d had such catapults, I’d have conquered the whole world.’
"Napoleon looks up from a copy of Pravda: ‘If I’d had a newspaper like this, nobody would ever have heard of Waterloo.’"
................................................................................................
"Khrushchev and Ulbricht are going around in Moscow. Khrushchev stops a small boy in the street and asks him: ‘Who is your father?’
"‘Comrade Khrushchev.’
"‘Your mother?’
"‘The Soviet Union.’
"‘What would you like to be?’
"‘An astronaut.’
"A few weeks later they meet again in East Berlin. This time it is Ulbricht who stops a small boy in the street.
"‘Who’s your father?’
"‘Comrade Ulbricht.’
"‘Your mother?’
"‘The German Democratic Republic.’
"‘What would you like to be?’
"‘An orphan.’"
............
"Most people define a humorist as the man to whom they must tell funny stories."
............
"As tellers of dirty jokes are mostly men and their so-called victims in most cases are women, Freudians regard sex jokes as verbal rape or, at least, preparation for physical approach.
"Many of the jokes are degrading to women. The dirty joke, according to Freud, is a slightly more sophisticated form of other nasty habits: whispering dirty words to women in the street or writing up four-letter words – usually the name of the female genital organ – on walls."
............
About the author of "Alice" masterpieces:-
"Dodgson’s outward life story may be told in a few words. He was born in 1832 (the year Lear met Lord Stanley), the son of the Reverend Charles Dodgson. He spent four years at Rugby, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1850, took a first class honours degree in mathematics at Christ Church and was appointed Lecturer in Mathematics there. He stayed in that job until he retired, at the age of forty-nine. In his spare time he became a brilliant photographer – according to some, one of the best in the nineteenth century. Under his own name he wrote such books as The Formulae of Plane Trigonometry and An Elementary Treatise on Determinants. He died at Guildford in 1898, at the age of sixty-six.
"Some biographers maintain that the great event of his life was meeting Ellen Terry. She was eighteen and breathtakingly beautiful. He – it is believed – fell in love with her; some allege that he wanted to marry her. Well, it is all ‘it is believed’ and ‘some allege’ because he never talked of his feelings, certainly never proposed to Miss Terry and never wrote one single line about his feelings for her in his diary. He never married."
" .... In 1856 he met Alice Liddell when she was not yet four. He told her lots of wonderful stories inventing them when they went for walks together. One day Alice said: ‘Oh, Mr Dodgson, I wish you would write out Alice’s adventures for me.’
"He did, under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll. 180,000 copies of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass were sold in his lifetime. The books also gave many phrases to the English language and many immortal characters to English folklore, from the Mad Hatter through Humpty-Dumpty to Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Yet, icily and on innumerable occasions, he persisted in saying: ‘Mr Dodgson neither claims nor acknowledges any connections with the books not published under his name.’ He wanted to be remembered as the author of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants."
............
The author quotes some of the work, poetry, of Lewis Carroll, of which YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM is really good. So is THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER, but it's not merely funny, or rather, it's lacks the feel-good quality of the former. He quotes ETIQUETTE by W. S. Gilbert, a good one about British society. GENTLE ALICE BROWN is, on the other hand, more horror than fun, evoking disgust for any opposite opinion.
His chapter on limerick is continuation of the dirty joke chapter, and in the next one he discusses English wit by mentioning Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde and Churchill.
"Joe Kennedy, the later and late President John Kennedy’s father, was US Ambassador to Britain during the war. At a ceremonial dinner Mrs Kennedy sat next to Churchill. She had innumerable children and grandchildren and believed in a curious theory: that she could never fail to interest anyone she met because at least one of her many offspring must fascinate him. On this occasion the Prime Minister had been talking to his other neighbour for a long time. It was towards the end of dinner that he turned to Mrs Kennedy, who said to him: ‘I don’t think, Mr Churchill, that I have told you anything about my grandchildren.’
"To which Churchill replied: ‘For which, Madam, I am infinitely grateful.’"
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
April 17, 2022
In this short book, the author bring us into a discussion of what is english humour. After briefly describing the definition of humour, he outlined three main characteristics of English humour: Self-deprecation, Understatement, and outright cruelty, three characteristics which I find quite curious, which I assumed firstly due to the loss of British Empire, but even then, the tradition already there when the empire was at its height. After that, the author also discussed various types of jokes, be it political, or even jewish, a type of jokes that losing their potency the closer you tell it to state of Israel.
After the discussion of theories of humour, the author moved to the practice, by telling us about the works of three unassuming jokesters and raconteurs: The perennially depressed Edward Lear, the bland, boring accountant more popularly known as C.S. Lewis, and the rather thin-skinned, anti-critic opera writer William Gilbert, one half of Gilbert and Sullivan. Apparently, the great tradition of English humour was built upon the shoulders of deeply unfunny Englishmen, a quite amusing irony.
After the discussion of theories of humour, the author moved to the practice, by telling us about the works of three unassuming jokesters and raconteurs: The perennially depressed Edward Lear, the bland, boring accountant more popularly known as C.S. Lewis, and the rather thin-skinned, anti-critic opera writer William Gilbert, one half of Gilbert and Sullivan. Apparently, the great tradition of English humour was built upon the shoulders of deeply unfunny Englishmen, a quite amusing irony.
November 19, 2023
It was ok, but very dated. I appreciated the analysis of the 3 faces of English humours and the preceeding analysis of what makes English humour English and some comparison with Irish, Scottish and Jewish humour. but while some of the examples he cites were funny, though not laugh out loud funny, the rest felt very dated. It is to be expected, of course, since he was born in 1912 and the book was written long past the prime of his career. But I do think understated jokes don't hit people as hard as they used to. Subtle misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia simply won't cut it.
The 'practice' section consisted nearly entirely of poetry, and I was thoroughly disappointed because I'm no big fan of poetry. At least a reading list would have suffice, if he chose not to prolong his book more than he wanted.
However, the writing was good enough in some parts that I decided to look for his most popular book so far, and I'm enjoying that one a lot more than this one.
The 'practice' section consisted nearly entirely of poetry, and I was thoroughly disappointed because I'm no big fan of poetry. At least a reading list would have suffice, if he chose not to prolong his book more than he wanted.
However, the writing was good enough in some parts that I decided to look for his most popular book so far, and I'm enjoying that one a lot more than this one.
July 4, 2025
I read about 20 pages of this then flicked through the rest before giving up. Okay, it was published in 1980 but I didn’t realise it was going to be SO dated 🫣 I suppose being written by a 68-year-old man in 1980 makes things a bit clearer.
Aside from the obviously bad stuff like retelling and defending telling homophobic, racist and misogynistic jokes, something that annoyed me from page 11 was this:
“… in the true English nonsense tradition. Until the nineteen seventies there was a coin in circulation in Britain called the half crown. There was no crown, but this disturbed no one. The English were quite happy with a fraction of a non-existent unit.”
Except there was a coin called a crown. The fact that he managed to get that wrong annoyed me as much as the other stuff shocked me 😂
In conclusion, if you’re reading this, don’t expect a comprehensive understanding of modern English humour; it is more like a snapshot of 1950s attitudes to humour.
Aside from the obviously bad stuff like retelling and defending telling homophobic, racist and misogynistic jokes, something that annoyed me from page 11 was this:
“… in the true English nonsense tradition. Until the nineteen seventies there was a coin in circulation in Britain called the half crown. There was no crown, but this disturbed no one. The English were quite happy with a fraction of a non-existent unit.”
Except there was a coin called a crown. The fact that he managed to get that wrong annoyed me as much as the other stuff shocked me 😂
In conclusion, if you’re reading this, don’t expect a comprehensive understanding of modern English humour; it is more like a snapshot of 1950s attitudes to humour.
October 14, 2023
I read this book because like the author I'm also a foreigner who's fond of (and tries to understand) English humour. But as the author says himself in one of the earlier chapters - it's probably impossible to find the one true definition of English humour, so the book wasn't very insightful. The first part was sadly also very dry, which was a bit odd, with this being a book about humour... But I liked the second part with practical examples, even if most of them weren't very recent (not even when the book was first published in the 80s).
June 2, 2020
Not funny or informative
This book was written in 1979 but may as well have been 1879. Around 25% of the humorous examples aren't even English and most of those that are by English humourists predate WW2. As to whether there is an English sense of humour or not the answer will not be found here. Buy a copy of the Beano you will learn more and have a good laugh.
This book was written in 1979 but may as well have been 1879. Around 25% of the humorous examples aren't even English and most of those that are by English humourists predate WW2. As to whether there is an English sense of humour or not the answer will not be found here. Buy a copy of the Beano you will learn more and have a good laugh.
March 26, 2022
For a book about humour, this book is very serious.
Although there are several good points made, a lot of it is clouded in overly complicated language that makes it feel more like a philosophical essay than a book about being funny.
Although there are several good points made, a lot of it is clouded in overly complicated language that makes it feel more like a philosophical essay than a book about being funny.
May 9, 2017
Analyses were spot on, jokes hit and miss, and the longer 'comedy' stories included at the end were so-so.
March 27, 2018
a short book, discussing different country and regions humour. also has examples of Edward Lear's 'nonsense' and Gilbert & Sullivan lyrics
August 15, 2018
An highly intelligent, and highly funny, account of the British sense of humor, and how it forms such a big part of their culture. A must read for any anglophile or prospective expatriate abroad.
August 15, 2020
Not sure if it had anything to do with English humour and quite enjoyed it.
April 21, 2022
2,5 rounded up. How to be an Alien was much more elegant and funnier, too.
May 14, 2023
An easy weekend read.
August 4, 2024
It had its moments, but by and large was too academic and theoretical.
Analysing a joke is like dissecting a frog; everyone gets bored and the frog dies.
Analysing a joke is like dissecting a frog; everyone gets bored and the frog dies.
December 14, 2024
It’s an interesting read, but probably doesn’t add too much, and the author comes up with wacky zingers a lot and states them as facts.
September 21, 2025
Allt í lagi bók. Fannst smá eins og það hefði verið lagður lítill metnaður í að skrifa hana.
July 14, 2016
I enjoyed this book, particularly the examples it contains. It's a bit like a time capsule. I could see in the shop that this book was very, very dated and that was part of its appeal for me. The book is essentially from a pre-TV, pre - alternative comedy, pre - modern stand-up, and pre - Internet perspective. None of these influences on modern English humour are mentioned. Not even Monty Python get a mention, despite a publication date of 1980. So as long as you're prepared for a book about how English humour maybe once was, then you too might enjoy the examples in this book.
February 10, 2017
My English husband gave his American wife this for our third anniversary. while some of this book is indeed humorous, I've learned far more about the humor of the English through living with one - and watching a lot of Fawlty Towers. While interesting, much of this feels dated, and much is far broader than the title would suggest. I'd be curious to read some of Mikes' other works, as he is highly regarded as a humorist, and I'd like to really know what all the fuss is about...
June 28, 2016
Some parts wittier than others - a decent beginning guide for English humor. The beginning half of the book of explination droned a bit for my taste, but the second half - the 'application/examples' of author profiles I enjoyed quite more!
April 12, 2024
I bought this book as a souvenir from London - after a huge culture shock about how dry some of British jokes could be. This book made me laugh a lot of times while I was reading it on the flight back.
June 21, 2016
My first George Mikes book and now I want to read them all! Great fun.
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