Humor Skills

刘哲

If you intendusing humor in your talk to make people smile, you must know how to identifyshared experiences and problems. Your humor must be relevant to the audienceand should help to show them that you are one of them or that you understandtheir situation and are in sympathy with their point of view. Depending on whomyou are addressing, the problems will be different. If you are talking to agroup of managers, you may refer to the disorganized methods of theirsecretaries; alternatively if you are addressing secretaries, you may want tocomment on their disorganized bosses.

　　Here is an example, which I heard at anurses' convention, of a story which works well because the audience all sharedthe same view of doctors. A man arrives in heaven and is being shown around bySt. Peter. He sees wonderful accommodations, beautiful gardens, sunny weather,and so on. Everyone is very peaceful, polite and friendly until, waiting in aline for lunch, the new arrival is suddenly pushed aside by a man in a whitecoat, who rushes to the head of the line, grabs his food and stomps over to atable by himself. "Who is that?" the new arrival asked St. Peter."Oh, that's God," came the reply, "but sometimes he thinks he'sa doctor."

　　If you are part of the group which you areaddressing, you will be in a position to know the experiences and problemswhich are common to all of you and it'll be appropriate for you to make apassing remark about the inedible canteen food or the chairman's notorious badtaste in ties. With other audiences you mustn't attempt to cut in with humor asthey will resent an outsider making disparaging remarks about their canteen ortheir chairman. You will be on safer ground if you stick to scapegoats like thePost Office or the telephone system.

　　If you feel awkward being humorous, youmust practice so that it becomes more natural. Include a few casual andapparently off-the-cuff remarks which you can deliver in a relaxed and unforcedmanner. Often it's the delivery which causes the audience to smile, so speakslowly and remember that a raised eyebrow or an unbelieving look may help toshow that you are making a light-hearted remark.

　　Look for the humor. It often comes from theunexpected. A twist on a familiar quote "If at first you don't succeed,give up" or a play on words or on a situation. Search for exaggeration andunderstatements. Look at your talk and pick out a few words or sentences whichyou can turn about and inject with humor.