Humor is difficult and very culture dependent.
I even found that having a language, a wording, that came from the eastern traditional working class part of our capital Oslo, made me seem rude and impolite at the University. The same city, just different parts. That was a surprise. Concealing the wording under an academic language just made things worse.
So I learnt that you shouldn�t search for insults because you will always find them.
Because of this I think we should be even more liberal to other peoples jokes and meanings. Accept the differences, it isn�t easy (I know), but it is all we can do to avoid the flame wars over what we think that the others think, and not what they actually do think. We have at least 10 nationalities here, and if all of them have the same cultural differences a small city like Oslo has it is a wonder we can communicate at all.
DagT
P� 23. mar. 2005 kl. 15.40 skrev Shel Belinkoff:
I agree that the use of certain types of humor can get some people upset,
but good humor is supposed to do that, for by poking fun or making light of
a situation it can point out its absurdity and foolishness. What is truly
sad is that some people will get so upset that they will create more
antagonism by riling against the humor, and those that invoke it, than the
joke or anecdote by itself may have
Of course, I love humor in any form, and will sometimes read myself to sleep with a book that is just filled with jokes and anecdotes.
A priest, a rabbi, and a nun walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What is
this, a joke?"
A set of jumper cables walks into a bar, and the bartender say, "I'll serve
you, but don't start anything."
I have a friend who's a Puerto Rican Jew. He's a janitor, but he owns the
building.
Shel
[Original Message] From: Fred
aWe are at peace. That's a good thing.
I have to disagree. There was a recent thread here that was started withreligious/ethnic joke that one of us (yours truly) thought wasbe
inappropriate, and said so. [It wasn't about my ethnic group or my
religion, but I just think that all religious and/or ethnic jokes shouldoff limits in this sort of a forum, but that's only just my opinion, and
apparently I'm in the minority on that point.] It did not become a war
because I chose not to fuel the ethnic fires with any further reply.
Instead, the thread went on "peacefully" for days with more jokes and the
occasional defense of the "appropriateness" of telling ethnic and/or
religious jokes. Yes, there was peace, but it was not a "good thing".
Fred
