Humour Isn't Funny
Why, Humour, are You such a humourless word?
Even worse, Your cousin, "Humor".
How can it be when I know You to be a word with happy definitions, mark you these testaments, people revere You as:
- a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter :)
- a quality of being funny :)
- the trait of appreciating, and being able to express, the humourous :)
What is more is that kind gentlemen are said to be "good-humoured"; to have a "sense of humour" is to enjoy a laugh and a joke.
So why the sad face, Humour? You are so miserable that You're used whenever any person of gravity wishes to talk about comedy without raising a smile. Walk into any bookshop or library and there You are, "Humour", doing Your worst to make Spike Milligan look boring.
Typical it is that the comedy most associated with You is black. It's never "Gallows Buffoonery" or "Gallows Gaiety" or even "Gallows Badinage"; but "Gallows Humour". And You rhyme so easily with "tumor" that I am tempted to call it deliberate - do You know how hard it is to rhyme with that hated word?
So why, Humour, why? Why sound so down-at-mouth when You always immerse Yourself in such a happy milieu?
Amidst all Your associations with comedy and laughter You conceal a dark past, don't You? You try to cover up Your unhappy upbringing with a cheerful definition or two, but You cannot hide the look on Your face after everyone has stopped laughing, can You?
I'm sure You remember Your youth, don't You, oh Humour most foul! Playing at god in the dank laboratory of physiology? Oh Humour! Reveal Yourself for who You are!
Blood, Phlegm, Yellow and Black Bile!
No wonder You leave a funny taste in the mouth.
Written at the National Treatment Agency between the hours of about half eleven and half one on Wednesday the 10th of May 2006.