Humor, Forms of

The term forms of humor refers to different types of humor in humor research. The joke is, of course, one of the better known forms of humor, but many other forms exist as well. Roughly, humor can be classified, in terms of the medium used, as verbal humor, visual humor, and physical humor. There are other marginal forms of humor, such as humor in music, made popular by the late Danish and American performer Victor Borge. These basic forms as well as their combinations are discussed here.

Each of the forms can be talked about as intentional or accidental, and the intentional category can be further broken down into spontaneous or prepackaged/canned. A slip of the tongue is an example of accidental humor, a known riddle is an example of canned humor, and a humorous move that one comes up with on the fly is another example of spontaneous humor.

Similarly, each of these forms can vary in how many sources of humor they contain. For example, a one-panel cartoon is likely to contain one manifestation of humor, just like a pun will. On the other hand, a longer humorous text or a slapstick routine is likely to have more than one manifestation of humor, as will a multipanel cartoon or comic strip.

Verbal humor is probably the most widely used form. It refers to humor produced through language, either orally or in writing. Such humor can depend on the use of language tools (such as puns, which rely on similar pronunciations in an utterance, or riddles, which can manipulate parts of different words) or on situations that are not language related (referential humor) but where humor is activated by an oral or written description. The length of a verbal humorous piece can vary from very short (e.g., a one-liner) to extremely long (e.g., a funny novel).

Visual humor refers to humor that is created by visual representation. Cartoons are a good example of visual humor. Purely visual cartoons will not contain text or caption, but humor will arise from the drawing itself. In art, there can be funny paintings.

Physical humor refers to people's actions, involving their body movements, facial expressions, and sounds that are not language. It can be intentional or unintentional—or as in Charlie Chaplin's early [Page 352]movies, intentional passing for unintentional. Physical humor is professionally performed by clowns, but a youngster acting out a scene from a movie with gestures and facial expressions is creating physical humor as well. Many of the performances by the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges are predominantly, if not exclusively, physical.

These three basic media can be combined, and much of the time they are, to generate more complex humor forms. For example, a stand-up act is likely to contain all three of the forms: The comedian is typically delivering his material through words, but at the same time he uses body language and facial expressions to enact some of the material. The comedian's clothing and/or stage decorations may add a visual element to the act. A musical accompaniment may be funny as well.

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