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Just Kidding: Using Humor Effectively
For professional comedians, their primary goal is to make people laugh. For everyone else humor can be the envelope in which another message is sent and therefore will be received with pleasure. This book is designed precisely to help you make your own efforts at humor more effective in achieving the primary goals of your to solidify friendships, preserve a marriage, obtain employment, close sales, conduct therapy, defuse conflict, or simply enjoy life more.
Humor is a quality nearly all of us claim in ourselves and one which we seek and highly value in others. We love a sense of humor in our dates and mates, our children, and everyone with whom we have social contacts. When humor making is successful, we are drawn closer to other people and share a bonding emotional experience. We enjoy life more and our troubles seem to lessen instantly.
There are many proven ways to enhance our senses of humor in ourselves and even our children. Humor making can be taught and developed to a very high level, thus increasing our chances for social and even economic success.
Just Using Humor Effectivelyis for adults who enjoy humor and who would like to be funnier. It includes definitions of funniness and examples of both helpful and harmful humor. It describes the relevant comedic and psychological rules for making humor effective. The book points out the danger signs for offensive humor and how to make the decision to “say it or stuff it.” Examples of successful and unsuccessful humor from comedians to politicians are used throughout to illustrate the many varieties of humor and how context and audience make a difference. Finally, a variety of fun exercises are offered to build the skills for effective humor making.
Humor is a quality nearly all of us claim in ourselves and one which we seek and highly value in others. We love a sense of humor in our dates and mates, our children, and everyone with whom we have social contacts. When humor making is successful, we are drawn closer to other people and share a bonding emotional experience. We enjoy life more and our troubles seem to lessen instantly.
There are many proven ways to enhance our senses of humor in ourselves and even our children. Humor making can be taught and developed to a very high level, thus increasing our chances for social and even economic success.
Just Using Humor Effectivelyis for adults who enjoy humor and who would like to be funnier. It includes definitions of funniness and examples of both helpful and harmful humor. It describes the relevant comedic and psychological rules for making humor effective. The book points out the danger signs for offensive humor and how to make the decision to “say it or stuff it.” Examples of successful and unsuccessful humor from comedians to politicians are used throughout to illustrate the many varieties of humor and how context and audience make a difference. Finally, a variety of fun exercises are offered to build the skills for effective humor making.
208 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 21, 2023
I was assigned this book to read for a class, otherwise I would have stopped reading after the first chapter.
February 23, 2013
If you flip to any page, i'd be there's a 25% chance the word "PC" is on there. This flimsy book does little more than reinforce things that most people already know about humor. Sex jobs at work? Probably a bad idea. Rehearsing before a gig - probably a good idea.
I'm not saying humor is rocket science, but it'd be more fitting to give some ancdetotal stories that aren't common knowledge. Also, even though there are areas of the book that discuss inapprorpriate humor - "The Aristrocrats", "roasting" - most of it is with the concerns of being PC. Way too cautious for anyone who actually enjoys humor.
I'm not saying humor is rocket science, but it'd be more fitting to give some ancdetotal stories that aren't common knowledge. Also, even though there are areas of the book that discuss inapprorpriate humor - "The Aristrocrats", "roasting" - most of it is with the concerns of being PC. Way too cautious for anyone who actually enjoys humor.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews