9 Humor Devices

  9 Humor Devices

Romeo & Juliet is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. In this story, Romeo and Juliet fall deeply in love with each other but the two families hatred for each other is a barrier. In the ending of the play, the readers all know that Juliet has faked her death with poison but will awaken in minutes. Romeo did not know about this in the plan and sees her "dead". Romeo then kills himself and within moments Juliet wakes up. The readers knew something that Romeo didn't which added suspense during the scene. This is an example of Dramatic Irony. I think that the author used dramatic irony to put the readers on their toes but also in other scenes uses dramatic irony as comic relief to an event that happened.  

Here is the cover picture to the song "Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel. In this song the exact meaning is not known but the universal thought of what it symbolises is Simon had a dream that people are not in reality. The title of this song as well as some of the lyrics give humor devices. This song is an example of an Oxymoron. The title "Sounds of Silence" is an oxymoron because how can you have silence sounds? I think that many oxymorons can be funny because the meaning of the words together are opposites.

(link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IjawyE9YII)

Here is a simple sign that is stating that there is an uneven surface. Really it should be more like caution rocks but instead they just used "uneven surface". This is an example of an Understatement since in fact yes it is an uneven surface but it is much more than that. There are large rocks that layer down til meeting the water. I think that understatements are really funny and a great humor device because it is such a simple statement or answer.

Here is a sign that was made and left on the top of a copy machine. The sign simply asked to not place anything heavy on top of the copying machine  and thanked for the "copulation". I think that whoever wrote this meant to say cooperation and defiantly not copulation which means animal mating. This mistake here is an example of Malapropism. Malapropisms are used as humor devices but in some cases are plan misuse of words with a similar sounding word. I think that malapropisms are quite funny because they are simple humorous devices. Weather this sign was meant to be a joke or not I think that it is funny and just a silly word mix up. If you watch some newscast videos of when they mess up and use the wrong words, that is also an example of malapropisms. 

 At the end of almost all of their commercials and on their ads, Red Bull uses the slogan "Red Bull gives you wiiings." Red Bull doesn't actually give you wings but other wise is an example of saying that you get more energy like you can fly. Their slogan is an example of a Hyperbole and it is also a metaphor. I think that this humor device can be funny but nothing that you might begin to cry from laughter. Also they have disclaimed in their videos that you actually don't get wings. It might be funny how people might think they can though.
 (link to one of their commercials - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3da0-sATGvg)

This example is a picture of a seagull sitting on a sign that is showing that there should be no seagulls. In this picture they are using the example of Situational Irony. The photographer of this picture has captured the timing of a situational irony and as well as how funny it can be. I think that this humor device is effective because situational irony is when what happens is not what was thought to occur.

This comic strip of Garfield and Jon is showing a conversation of why cats don't play fetch. Garfield is sniffing, coughing, burping, and scratching during the whole conversation but in the end tells Jon the reason that cats don't fetch is because they have too much dignity. This is an example of Verbal Irony. The author, Jim Davis, using the example of verbal irony because while Garfield answered "cats have too much dignity", he was acting as if he had no dignity at all. I think that this humor device can be effective but sometimes hard to tell when it is being used.

      The e-card might seem confusing but really the author was just using a humor device. On this card, the joke is asking about a math word problem. The problem gives the amount of ice cubes and apples you have and then asks for how many pancakes will fit on the roof. The answer given is "purple because aliens don't wear hats." This answer to the joke has nothing to do with anything asked. This greeting card is an example of Sarcasm since the joke is roasting those silly math word problems that we grew up with. I think that sarcasm is one of the most effective humor devices but sometimes can be taken the wrong way. Here the roast was given to the math problems. 

In this Los Angeles Times article, "Big rig carrying fruit crashes on 210 Freeway, creates jam", it is about truck carrying fruit had fallen over on the highway and blocked many lanes creating a traffic jam. Even though this is a large accident, the author of this article uses a humor device to lighten what happened. The title of this article is an example of using a Pun. This article's title is a pun because it is a play on words. The title is stating that the fruit truck caused a jam on the highway but the humor to it is that "the fruit became jam." I think that puns are very effective because it can be so corny and just a silly way to create humor.

Enrique's Journey - Obstacles

Obstacles Lesson 5 - Enrique's Journey 

Enrique experiences many obstacles while on his journey to get into the United States. Some of the obstacles he faced were financial issues, laws, transportation and also his safety during his travels.

Enrique has the main goal of getting back to his mother that now lives in the United States. Transportation was one of the larger obstacles for Enrique as well as all of the other people doing the same journey. For these journeys, the people trying to smuggle into the US could either do it themselves or pay someone to bring them. For Enrique, the lack of money sent him to travel from Honduras to the United States without the help of a smuggler. Enrique's main form of travel was the train which was very dangerous and is very life threatening. The author of the book, Sonia Nazario, explains how traveling just the train gave the threats of falling off, getting caught by the police, losing limbs, getting robbed, raped, and even death. 

In the novel, Enrique facing the obstacle more then once and instead of giving up he continues to try and in the end succeeds. Enrique gets caught more then 5 times just from traveling on the train due to getting caught by the police. 

Enrique is not the only person to have obstacles with transportation. Every year about 48,000 young children travel north to go and find their mothers but not all of them make the journey.

The obstacle of transportation that these people deal with are things like walking with not knowing the city, the people, and the dangers, having to take trains that also set a dangerous settings and also the unknown of what might happen during the traveling. For Enrique transportation was overcame because he wanted to be as safe as he could and he knew what he had to do to get to where he wanted. 

To overcome the obstacles they faced, all these individuals worked hard and worked out different ways of traveling. 

Final Paragraph - 

To be a survivor in life, one must never give up and work hard. In life there are so many obstacles that people might endure and as long as you stay strong, work through it, and not give up you will have the success to overcome the obstacle or obstacles. It might not be as easy as saying those words but any obstacle is like a test. When you have a test at school coming up what do you do? You take your time to study, practice and learn so you can pass the test, right? Well just make sure you understand the obstacle and like Enrique do not give up what you worked so hard for. Continue to work and in the end you work will turn into success and you would have made it over the obstacle. 

Evolution Assignment

Here are four scientists which were involved in the theory of evolution.


Herbert Spencer :
    April 27, 1820 - December 8, 1902 (Lived 83 years)
 English man who was a philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and classical liberal political theorist. Herbert Spencer had writings of the theory of evolution before Darwin did. He had contributed a wide range of information to help support the ideas of evolution since his background of education.
 The first clear articulation of evolutionary perspective was in an essay he wrote which was published in the Westminster Review in 1857. Spencer is known for the concept "survival of the fittest", which was put into the book, Principles of Biology (1864). The concept of survival of the fittest is something that is in the theory today. Spencer was very important in the Victoria era and was popular among many people.  During Herbert's lifetime he had sold over a million copies of his work. He had built upon Darwin's thoughts on the theory of evolution and used Darwin's work to help him get more in depth of what might happen and how organisms were only getting better and better.


Ronald Fisher :
    February 17, 1890 - July 29, 1962 (Lived 72 years)
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher was an English man who lived in England as well as Australia. He was a statistician, geneticist, eugenicist, and evolutionary biologist. Ronald Fisher contributed to creating ANOVA (analysis of variance), which he is well known for. He attended Cambridge and was going to enter the army but failed due to poor eyesight. He married and during the war he had begun to write book reviews which increased his interest in genetic and statistical work around 1917. In 1916 he wrote an paper, "The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance", which laid the foundation of biometrical genetics. In 1919, he started working at Rothamsted Experimental Station, where he later in 1925 he was working on publishing his first book, Statistical Methods for Research Workers. After a long field in ecological genetics, his work was important to the thought of natural selection and he was the original author of heterozygote advantage. Fisher promoted the method of maximum likelihood estimation as well as a few others. Mr. Fisher worked on the theory of population genetics and made himself one of the top people in that field. Another book he wrote, "The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection" that was published in 1930, stated ideas on sexual selection, mimicry, and evolution of dominance. He showed that the probability of a mutation increasing fitness of an organism decreases the proportionately with the magnitude of the mutation. He is who set the foundations of what is now population genetics.

Sewall Green Wright:
      December 21, 1889 - March 3, 1988 (Lived 98 years)
Mr. Wright was born in the United States of America in Massachusetts. He was a geneticist know for his work on evolutionary theory. Sewall Wright, Ronald Fisher and J. B. S. Haldane worked and used each others work to create the theoretical population genetics, which was the a very important step for the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Wright discovered inbreeding coefficient and methods of computing in pedigrees. As he extended his work to populations inbreeding, it led to results of genetic drift, distribution of gene frequencies among populations, that had a result of interaction of natural selection, mutation, and migration. Sewall's theory on evolution was that in order to evolve to higher peak, the species would first have to pass through a valley of maladaptive intermediate stages that would happen through genetic drift if the population was small enough. This was Sewall Wright's shifting balance theory of evolution. Wright did some work on the genetics of guinea pigs with help develop the mammalian genetics. In Wrights life time he was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal in1945, the National Metal of Science in 1966, Darwin Medal in 1980 and a few more awards. Mr. Sewall Green Wright was the connection of genetics and evolution together.

Theodosius Dobzhansky
      January 24, 1900 - December 18, 1975 (Lived 75 years)


Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky was born in Russia and when he was 27 years old he had emigrated to the United States on a scholarship so he could study in the States. Before moving to the United States Theodosius had published 35 scientific works. In the states, he began with working on genetic experiments using fruit flies. He published a major work of the modern evolutionary synthesis in 1937 and defined evolution as "a change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool". In 1941, he was awarded with the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal and the Franklin Medal in 1973.