Do everyone a favour - when quoting someone, paraphrase to
save space and elinimate reading the whole thing if you are
only referring to a specific point - on to my reply...
--- longtom2222 <bigverybadtom_at_aol.com> wrote:
> <scrapperbd_at_y...> wrote:
> > the upper windows. I snickered as I said "Waving good
> bye,
> > cos its the last thing you're going to do!" and a
> > colleague said "That's not funny."...
> Um, being hurt in an accident and recovering is one
> thing, but being
> about to be burned alive isn't exactly humorous in my
> book. Would
> you laugh at the people going into the Nazi death camps?
This crosses into dilberate versus "stuff happens". Seeing
someone smack the shite out of someone else is rarely
humourous (though sometimes well deserved!). Having
something happen without forethought tends to provide the
humour in regard to it is the unexpected situation, the
sudden reaction, that provides the stimulus and
shock/humor. The two are very closely releated. "If you
don't laugh, you'll cry"; people who are hysterical are
frequently bordering between laughing in sanely and crying.
"When giving something a lessen in meanness, don't be
surprised if it learns its lesson" - cowboy philosophy. As
mentioned, deliberately hurting someone is just cruel. A
soldier walks up and deliberately shoots another soldier in
the foot - Cruel.
A solider walks up, starts chatting to his comrade and
accidentally shoots his mate in the foot - Funny.
WHY? It is the unexpected, yet not malicious act. It is
still painful, etc, but it was not intended to cause harm,
even if this was the result.
Hence in response to your question, no, I do not find
malicious acts funny. It is a bit like someone adding a
harmless but smart alec comment on a sign - I saw a good
example outside a church where a large sign said "Jesus
Saves" and some wit had added in texta "Which Bank?". On
the other hand, if they had scribbled their name or
something across the whole sign, that would have just been
malicious and far from funny. Purely vandalistic. Though
defacing the sign was not necessarily the right thing to
do, it showed that someone had read it and thought about it
a little. Made it stick in my head far more than the
original religious message.
Scrapper, Black Dragon, despite atemtping rules for black
and white, there is still much grey.
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Sep 05 2004 - 15:02:51 CDT