Page 39 - The Language of Humour

26 ‘I SAY, I SAY, I SAY’
Are they safe?

‘He’ could refer to the defendant or to the judge himself; ‘they’ could
refer to bombs or to the parents.

Extension

The examples that you have looked at so far have been jokes
constructed for a laugh. Humour is used as a device to attract attention
for other purposes. It is used in advertising, for example, with the main
purpose of persuading people to buy the product or use the service. It is
used in headlines to create interest in reading on. The deliberate creation
of structural ambiguity may be used in other types of text. Collect
examples of texts that use structural ambiguities, and discuss the
purpose of such humour.
You may have noticed that most of the jokes quoted in this unit relied
on a question and answer format. Frank Muir (‘Told in the Tuck-shop’,
Times Literary Supplement, 1978) calls this format ‘riddles’ and
suggests that its continuing popularity is probably due to the fact that ‘it
gives the asker a tiny superiority. He knows something that the party of
the second part does not know and has to admit that he does not know.’
Compile the jokes and riddles that are current in your circle, assess
whether most of them do follow this question and answer format, and
discuss Muir’s hypothesis concerning their popularity.