NATURE, ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF HUMOR 147 



fashion or quite out of it is equally an object of ridicule." Doubtless 

 if the centuries could rise up and view each other en masse, their first 

 act would be mutual laughter at each other's clothes. 



5. Customs and Manners. — As stimulants of humor customs and 

 manners have, perhaps, no equal. They excite it alike in the vulgar 

 and the cultured, in the illiterate and the learned. They appear in 

 excesses and exaggerations and in violating time and space relations, 

 either as innovations or as lingering too long. To appear in excess or 

 out of time and place implies some age and stability in human institu- 

 tions. Norms and standards of fashions must be formed, regularity 

 in activities must freeze into custom and the free spirit of good-fellow- 

 ship and of social intercourse must become habituated to the plane of 

 manners before the spirit of satire, wit and humor can react for or 

 against them. The gentle old countryman whose habit it had been to 

 exchange the courtesies of life with his fellow travelers along the 

 country highway, awakened a ripple of humor when he graciously shook 

 hands with all the occupants of a city street car. Mark Twain in his 

 " Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court," gives us a charming 

 glimpse of the humor of manners and customs out of time. Fielding 

 observes of even so playful a dramatist as Sheridan that he attacks 

 affectation, false sentiments, hollow forms and empty words in life and 

 literature. 



6. Words, Language and Thought. — This is the favorite tramping 

 ground for both the humorist and his critic. The most delicate, subtle 

 and refined specimens occur here. It is also here that an attempt to 

 give an adequate treatment resembles trying to bottle a fog or lasso a 

 cloud. To make some headway, however, we are under the necessity of 

 drawing a few distinctions. All words, language and thought, not 

 humorous to the speaker but so interpreted by the observer, may be 

 termed unconscious humor (following the lead of common usage). 

 The humorous interpretation of unconscious humor may be called 

 passive humor. All deliberate manipulation of words, language and 

 thoughts by the subject for humorous effects may be considered active 

 humor. In what follows the text will show which sort is meant. 4 

 Concerning words, it appears that their misspelling, mispronunciation, 

 misinterpretation, forced usage and misusage, punning, repetition, local- 

 isms and foreign accents endow them with a certain degree of humor. 

 Many of the humorous classics use one or more of these methods. 

 The writings of " Artemus Ward " and " Josh Billings " about exhaust 

 the possibilities of misspelling. Negro, Irish and foreign dialects now 

 occupy much of the field of mispronunciation and misinterpretation. 

 Dickens displays the worth of forced usage in the inimitable Pickwick. 

 Sheridan creates Mrs. Malaprop largely by these methods. Shake- 

 speare had the courage to pun to his own satisfaction. Dickens has 



4 For a discussion of the forms of the comic see Th. Lipps, " Komik und 

 Humor," pp. 78-102. 



