A lot of Russian humor (when it's not play-on-words type) seems to translate well:
Posted on 05/24/2005 12:18:18 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The highest functions of our brains, including a carefully orchestrated sequence of complex cognitive skills in specific parts, handle the lowest form of wit such as sarcasm, a new research suggests.
According to investigations by scientists from the University of Haifa, areas of the brain that decipher sarcasm and irony also process language, recognise emotions and help understand social cues, the Guardian newspaper reported.
"Sarcasm is related to our ability to understand other people's mental state. It's not just a linguistic form, it's also related to social cognition," said Simone Shamay-Tsoory, a psychologist at the University of Haifa.
"Understanding other people's state of mind and emotions is related to our ability to understand sarcasm."
The team recruited 41 people who had suffered mild brain damage following accidents or illness. Together with 17 healthy volunteers, the scientists checked how they understood neutral and sarcastic statements read by actors.
One sarcastic example was: "Joe came to work and instead of beginning to work he sat down to rest. His boss noticed his behaviour and said 'Joe, don't work too hard'."
The study showed that people with damage in the prefrontal lobe struggled to pick out sarcasm. The others, including people with similar damage to other parts of the brain, were able to correctly place the sharp-tongued words into context.
The prefrontal lobe is known to be involved in pragmatic language processes and complex social cognition. The ventromedial section is linked to personality and social behaviour.
Shamay-Tsoory said the loss of the volunteers' ability to understand irony was a subtle consequence of their brain damage, which produced behaviour similar to that seen in people with autism.
"They are still able to hold and understand a conversation. Their problem is to understand when people talk in indirect speech and use irony, idioms and metaphors because they take each sentence literally. They just understand the sentence as it is and can't see if your true meaning is the opposite of your literal meaning," she said.
Her team proposes a three-stage neural pathway in our brains that enables us to understand irony. First, the language centre in the brain's left hemisphere interprets the literal meaning of words.
Next, the frontal lobes and right hemisphere process the speaker's intention and check for contradictions between the literal meaning and the social and emotional context.
Finally, the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex - our sarcasm meter - makes a decision based on our social and emotional knowledge of the situation.
HA!, it's funny. Many times I talk sarcastically to my ex husband and his family and they never get it!. Now I understand why. THEY ARE MORONS!.
You know what`s really strange are the people in Austria, for some reason they have no concept of sarcasm, I`m not kidding, it`s pretty bizarre. My brother lived in Vienna for about 7 years and one year I went to visit him, and joking around with his Austrian friends I would sometimes say something sarcastic and they would stare at me like I was serious, or didn`t understand what I was saying. It wasn`t because of a language barrier, they spoke and understood English quite well, but the whole thing with sarcasm would fly right over their heads. My brother told me about this before I went there, and I couldn`t believe it until I did it. I went when it was snowing lke crazy and I remember one time we were standing outside in this freggin` blizzard and I said to one of his friends "You think it may snow today?" and the guy stared at me and then finally said "It is snowing already." lol!
I know people here that are like that. I remember in college saying to someone that third person was sarcasm illiterate.
Okay, it's now official.
From here on out, any time I lay out a witty comment and you folks don't get it, now I can give you a link to this thread so you can see what a lamebrain you are. :-)
What's worse are the people who sort-of get it, but don't think it's funny.
I didn't know my 'BS' meter had a scientific name.
Wow, what shocking and informative post.
(Please, no foreign language polizei, bitte!)
Me: "A giraffe walks into a bar. . ."
Her: "Why would a giraffe walk into a bar? Giraffes don't drink. And how would he fit in there? They're so tall. And giraffes don't talk, how would he say something like that to the bartender?"
Me: (Making sounds of low-flying jet, zooming my flat hand palm down 1 inch over her head)
I do the above routine every time I tell her a joke that she doesn't get. She didn't get what I was doing at first, but after I explained it to her about three times, she just gets annoyed when I do it. Doesn't stop me, though.
I'm the smartest person in the world.
And I thought puns were the lowest form of wit. Now I see that I'm not getting enough irony in my diet.
Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) Well, I was terrified. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
2nd Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.
Presenter:By a combination of violence and sarcasm, the Piranha brothers by February 1966 controlled London and the Southeast of England. It was in February, though, that Dinsdale made a big mistake.
Gee, THIS sure is important news.......
I think they've referred to sarcasm as the lowest form of wit just to make a cute headline. It's clear from the story, and the posts here, that it is not the lowest or rather most easily understood form of humor.
But I always think puns get a bad rap. I think slap stick is probably the simplest form. I remember reading in TV Guide about some family who came here from China or someplace like that, they had no grasp of the language at all at first, and the only TV show they could really enjoy was I Love Lucy, since it was so broad and had so much slap stick in it.
Next to speaking on the phone, jokes are the hardest thing to understand in a foreign language. Germans and Austrian presumably believe they know English better than they do.
A lot of Russian humor (when it's not play-on-words type) seems to translate well:
This seems to jive with an earlier story that I read about what type of people tended to make the best Soldiers. A study concluded that the best Soldiers tended to be very cynical and sarcastic. Perhaps it was because they were more intelligent.
This may also explain much of liberalism. Based upon my experience, going to school in the liberal utopia of Boston, I would say that most liberals chafe at sarcasm. In their view it is not high-minded or intellectual. Perhaps they were being sarcastic.
I knew this -- they could have just asked.
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