The Mind Creative SEPTEMBER 2014 | Page 20

The Mind Creative Humour is all about feeling good. While it has at times been used to ridicule and rebuke, it has also been a very useful tool that has often been employed to educate and to express thoughts and opinions that would otherwise be hard to state in simple words. In fact, humour is a state of the mind that forms an essential part of our existence and a trait that separates human beings from other fauna. Humour, as we know it today, has a long history that dates back to the time of Aristotle. At that time, humour was strongly associated with satire. Over the centuries, the concept of humour has changed and in fact the definition has widened to encompass various “categories” of humour, each with their own triggers and outcomes. Much has been written about the use of humour, covering many subjects like standup comedy, literature and even about the philosophy of humour. Recently, I found a very interesting article written by Eric Decker in his weekly newspaper humorous column called Eric Decker’s Laughing Stalk where Decker defines seven categories of humour and I will borrow his concise definitions here. Dry: Dry humour is very different from the other six types. It is that “not-so-funny” and dead pan humour that can often be implied or indirect. Farce: Farce is comedy that has been exaggerated to handle improbable, larger than life situations. This type is often used in comic dramatic work. Dark: Dark humour makes light of otherwise serious subject matters like distress, sadn \