1. Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to
provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral
medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the
human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health
and emotion.
People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. The majority of people are
able to experience humour, i.e., to be amused, to laugh or smile at something
funny, and thus they are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical
person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by
humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided
by personal taste, the extent to which a person will find something humorous
depends upon a host of variables, including geographical
location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For
example, young children may favour slapstick, such as Punch and Judy puppet
shows or cartoons such asTom and Jerry. Satire may rely more on understanding
the target of the humour and thus tends to appeal to more mature audiences.

2. Let’s watch a short video, then proceed to a quick discussion. The video
was taken from a British comedy show which was very popular in Britain in
the 80’s: The Black Adder, starring Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen
Fry and Tony Robinson. The purpose of this video is to show how difficult it
might get to understand jokes that make very specific reference to a
country’s culture, regardless of accent or word choice.

4. Discussion topics:
-Do you think people’s reactions to humor rely heavily on where they are
from; how old they are; their upbringing; their gender; their social
environment?
- Can we say there’s something we might call “universal humor” then?
-Do you usually watch comedy shows? If you do, what is your favorite?
-Should there be set limits for what comedians can or can’t say? Why?

5. Now let’s take a quick look on a set of political and non-political cartoons.
After reading them, your task is to try to describe what is going on in each
picture; identify the characters portrayed with groups according to
age, gender, career, etc; contextualize each scene in terms of time and space
(when and where they were produced); tell your partner whether you’ve
found them funny or not and why.

14. Now, read the following joke:
As an airplane is about to crash, a female passenger jumps up frantically
and announces, "If I'm going to die, I want to die feeling like a woman."
She removes all her clothing and asks, "Is there someone on this plane
who is man enough to make me feel like a woman?"
A man stands up, removes his shirt and says, "Here, iron this!".
Now discuss the following topics:
-Do you think a situation like that could ever be possible? Is this story
plausible?
-What do you think the woman really meant by "If I'm going to die, I want to
die feeling like a woman.“ ?
-Do you think the man got it right?
-Can we predict what a joke will end like?
-In this particular story can you sense a feeling of disruption between the
beginning and the end of the story?

15. Ok! Now let’s listen to two examples of misheard lyrics. They’re not the real
lyrics to a song, naturally, but many native speakers of English can’t understand
what singers are actually saying, due to mispronunciation or poor diction. So,
don’t think you’re the only one who can’t get what people sing in English; quite
often it’s not your fault, but the singer’s!
Video #1 -Yellow Leadbetter, by Pearl Jam
Video #2 - A collection of misheard lyrics