NANOG and cancer

4.3.1 Notions of resolution

One very common proposal which further explores the use of incongruity in humour is the incongruity-resolution (IR) theory (see Suls (1983) for discus-sion). This analysis states that incongruity alone is not sufficient to create humour, but this incongruity must be resolved (i.e. seen to be not as incon-gruous as first thought). This is done by a multi-stage process in which an initial incongruity is created, and then some further information causes the resolution of that incongruity. Shultz (1976) claims that this analysis is of ‘immense heuristic value in accounting for vast samples of humour’.

Ruch says, citing a number of writers including Shultz (1972) and Suls (1972), that ‘there is general agreement about the existence of this two-stage structure in the process of perceiving and understanding humour’

(Ruch 1992: 31).

The way of creating and resolving the incongruity can be quite varied, as are the analyses presented in the literature.

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(28) What is grey, has four legs, and a trunk?

A mouse on vacation.

(Rothbart 1977) Rothbart suggests that in (28), the incongruity is presented by the ques-tion part – namely, that the quesques-tion appears to have a surprisingly easy answer – and then resolved in the answer, which is also a surprise.

(29) Why did the cookie cry?

Because its mother had been a wafer so long.

(Shultz 1976) With example (29), Shultz says that the answer is initially seen as incon-gruous, with wafer interpreted as ‘a type of cookie’, but then resolution occurs with the realization that there is an alternative interpretation, ‘away for’. Attardo (1994: 128–31), in contrast, opts for ‘away for’ as the more prominent meaning, with ‘wafer’ as the alternative. Pepicello and Weisberg (1983) quote Shultz (1974) as saying that the word wafer actually creates the incongruity, and go on to claim that in an ‘informal study’ most people interpret wafer as ‘away for’ initially. Rothbart and Pien (1977) say that (29) has three incongruities: a cookie crying, the ‘surprisingness’ of the answer, and the cookie having a mother.

(30) Why did the elephant sit on the marshmallow?

Because he didn’t want to fall into the hot chocolate.

(Rothbart and Pien 1977) Rothbart and Pien also say that in (30), the question presents an incon-gruous situation, and the answer both explains (resolves) it and adds a new incongruity.

In contrast, Pepicello and Weisberg claim that the comparably struc-tured joke (31) is simply a parody of a riddle, in which a question is posed which is impossible to answer.

(31) Why do elephants paint their toenails red?

So they can hide in cherry trees.

(Pepicello and Weisberg 1983) Some authors seem to regard resolution as removing incongruity, others treat it as explaining incongruity. In some of these examples, the answer

‘explains’ but reinforces the incongruity. Attardo remarks (with respect to example (31) ):

. . . the resolution of the incongruity is not a ‘real’ resolution: it does not get rid of the incongruity – it actually introduces more of the same 11

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– but because it has some distorted verisimilitude it is accepted play-fully as a pseudo-resolution.

(Attardo 1994: 144) Suls analyses (32) in IR terms, since the answer ‘comes as a surprise’ but can be made to follow from the question with a little thought.

(32) If your son flunks out of school and is illiterate and anti-social, what can he grow up to be?

An Italian policeman.

(Suls 1977) Attardo (1997) suggests that the concept of resolution can be identified with the logical mechanism of the General Theory of Verbal Humour, but this explains one undefined notion in terms of another (see Chapter 6 for discussion).

Most expositions of incongruity-resolution have the incongruity occur-ring prior (temporally) to the resolution, with the resolution (the later event) producing the humorous effect. This sequence would not fit naturally with a joke in which an incongruity is implied by an already established line of reasoning, so that the resolution seems to precede the incongruity.

(33) Sitting on the side of the highway waiting to catch speeding drivers, a State Police Officer sees a car puttering along at 22mph. He thinks to himself, ‘This driver is just as dangerous as a speeder!’ So he turns on his lights and pulls the driver over. Approaching the car, he notices that there are five old ladies – two in the front seat and three in the back. The driver, obviously confused, says to him, ‘Officer, I don’t understand, I was doing exactly the speed limit! What seems to be the problem?’ ‘Ma’am,’ the officer replies, ‘You weren’t speeding, but you should know that driving slower than the speed limit can also be a danger to other drivers.’ ‘Slower than the speed limit? No sir, I was doing the speed limit exactly . . . twenty-two miles an hour!’ the old woman says a bit proudly. The State Police Officer, trying to contain a chuckle, explains to her that ‘22’ is the route number, not the speed limit. A bit embarrassed, the woman grins and thanks the officer for pointing out her error. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she says, ‘It’s a good thing you didn’t see us on Route 119.’

(edited from www.jokes2000.com) In (33), the punchline (the final utterance by the driver-character) does not seem to resolve anything. Instead, it implies a mildly incongruous situ-ation (an elderly lady driving at breakneck speed) for which the logical justification (resolution) has not only already been supplied but also causes 1

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the inference of the incongruity. It is hard to see how the resolution, in any plausible sense of the word, occurs after the incongruity.

Authors advocating the IR approach rarely make systematic compar-isons between jokes and non-humorous texts. Many stories, even true accounts of actual incidents, involve incongruity in some sense, and this incongruity is often resolved, if we take this to mean ‘explained’ or ‘given a reason’. However, not all such occurrences are funny, suggesting that resolution of incongruity is not sufficient for humour.

4.3.2 The INC-RES component

The main empirical support for a notion of incongruity-resolution humour comes from psychological investigations of humour appreciation (Ruch 1992). Many studies have been carried out in which subjects are asked to rate a set of jokes and/or cartoons on several scales (e.g. for degrees of funniness). Statistical analysis of these results has shown, according to Ruch, that three factors consistently recur, two related to the abstract structure of the joke/cartoon (INC-RES and NON ), and one describing joke content (SEX ). Ruch’s gloss of INC-RES(mnemonic for incongruity-resolution) is:

Jokes and cartoons of this humor category are characterized by punch-lines in which the surprising incongruity can be completely resolved.

The common element in this type of humor is that the recipient first discovers an incongruity that is then fully resolvable upon considera-tion of informaconsidera-tion available elsewhere in the joke or cartoon.

(Ruch 1992: 31) Of NON (mnemonic for ‘nonsense’), Ruch comments that ‘the resolution information gives the appearance of making sense out of incongruities without actually doing so’:

. . . the punchline may (1) provide no resolution at all (2) provide a partial resolution (leaving an essential part of the incongruity unre-solved) or (3) actually create new absurdities or incongruities.

(McGhee et al. (1990) quoted by Ruch (1992: 32) ) Ruch also states that these two components, together with the separate notion of sexual humour (SEX), ‘provide an exhaustive taxonomy in clas-sifying jokes and cartoons at a general level’.

The claim that the relevant subset of jokes/cartoons involves the reso-lution of incongruity is an estimation made by the experimenters – the methods employed in these studies do not extend to decomposing the individual data items in a way which defines or displays the exact form 11

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of ‘incongruity’. This is crucial from our viewpoint, as our goal is to develop a formal model of the salient components of humorous items. It would be interesting (but beyond the scope of the current volume) to take sets of items ( jokes and cartoons) which are consistently classed as INC-RESor NON and try to develop a formal description which would embody the ideas glossed above, i.e. to apply the descriptive methodology we are advocating to this specific corpus of examples.

4.4 Summary

Incongruity, and incongruity-resolution, are two of the most central and frequently proposed concepts in humour theorizing, but there is no agree-ment about what they mean or about where they fit into a theory of humour.

In Chapter 5 we will examine two particular variants of incongruity-resolution, one of which is so widely advocated that we will go on to discuss it further in Chapter 8.

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