Re: Humor as a communication technique

[Sarah Carroll <sarahc -at- INDIGO -dot- IE>]

Actually Andrew,

At 20:42 15/06/98 -0700, Andrew Plato wrote:
>I have a thought for the list to ponder.  This came about based on my last post.
>I posted a rather satirical message about the "blueprint for a tech pubs group".
>Some people got seriously offended by it.  Which made me realize something I
>pretty much already knew -- humor is a powerful persuasive device.

As soon as I saw the words "Couldn't resist a chance to
be an assh**e:" in that "satirical message" my brain
said "I don't want to read this..."  Then I thought, well,
sometimes assh**es make interesting, provocative
statements, so I did read on. The next line wasn't so
bad, then the following paragraph began:
"1 - Ineffectual, worthless slug-of-a-human manager. "

There I switched off completely, and hit the next message
arrow. Offended? no. Persuaded? Definitely not, I never
read enough to be persuaded. Bored? Infinitely.

I'm one of those people who is frequently moved
by documentaries, don't even know what "Contact"
or "The Truman Show" are. I've sometimes come
across humour in technical reference material, (not
all of it intentional, I have to add) and I really dislike
it. It rarely appeals to my sense of humour, usually
strikes me as juvenile and irrelevant, and gets in
the way of what I want to do.

And to prove the point, and to give myself away
completely as a dry, humourless, robotic, foreigner,
What's so funny about ducks?

Best
Sarah
sarahc -at- indigo -dot- ie