Comments on: English Humour vs. American Humor – Is There a Difference?

By: leila

leila — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:09:12 +0000

I love this web

By: dave whitehead

dave whitehead — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:48:27 +0000

Not all my humour is smut/gutter stuff.
“I suffer from dyspepsia………………..
I can’t smell worms”
A duck walks into a bar and says to the barman “Have you got any bread?”
the barman says no, we got beer, liquor, chips and pretzels, but we don’t have bread!
So the duck says “have you got any bread?
The barman repeats, and so does the duck, several times, until the barman is thoroughly fed up, and he says “If you ask for bread once more I’m going to nail your bill to the bar!”
so the duck says “have you got any nails?”
the barman says actually no I don’t
so the duck says “have you got any bread then?”

By: dave whitehead

dave whitehead — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:24:39 +0000

Re U.S. laborious overexplanation as a national stereotype, this has been recognised sufficiently for it to be used as a comedic vehicle in itself, for example in the Mel Brtooks comedy ‘Blazing Saddles’.
We’ll build a fake Rock Ridge, so when they ride in to destroy the town, the’ll think its the real Rock Ridge, but we’ll know its the fake Rock Ridge, but they’ll think……………..
I do realise that not everyone is a stereotypical moron, but please U.S. beware of the way you portray characters in the movies and TV shows that you sell to the rest of the English speaking world, for you are likely to be perceived as the jackasses portrayed in such material. Please balance the portrayal of yourselves as people who can be succinct and intelligent as well as hysterical and loud.
The most human sit-com characters are the Simpsons.
By the way, my name is Michael Hunt, my friends call me Mike……………
Have you seen Mike………….?

By: Lizzie

Lizzie — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:46:46 +0000

Come on, how can anyone say Brits don’t use sarcasm? I think that we have a tendancy to use it over an extended period of time. For example a whole conversation could be sarcastic, or a sarcastic comment could either be played along with or have an overly serious answer.

By: Dominic

Dominic — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:27:09 +0000

To say the British don’t use or like sarcasm is soo wrong, that with irony are essentials for us.

By: Blog Portfolio Quarter 3 « Tim's Blog

Blog Portfolio Quarter 3 « Tim's Blog — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:09:00 +0000

[...] American Humor vs. Kafka is my representation for my depth blog post because I was able to relate my work to another blog that I found online discussing the issue of humor and culture. This idea of culture vs. humor was mentioned by David Foster Wallace’s article, but I decided to expand on this idea by comparing American humor to British humor. [...]

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:20:21 +0000

Americans get irony, but just kinda feel its a card overused. They use it in sparingly situations. Yes.
American joke:
What do you call a ghost bee?
A: A boobee.

By: Colby

Colby — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 04:01:33 +0000

I’m a Anglophile American, and I do watch a lot of British TV. My father’s side of the family prefers dry British humor. My mom’s side prefers laugh out loud American humor.

What I find the difference is between the two is in portrayal of the joke. British tend to be more reserved and the audience has a ho hum chuckle. American tends to be a more out going slapstick style and the audience about has a hernia laughing.

Some British say that Americans don’t understand irony in humor. Is that true? Partially. Irony here tends to be more of a device used in drama. So when irony is used, Americans think the setting is more dramatic. Americans, instead, primarily use sarcasm in humor, which British don’t usually understand or find funny.

I was talking to a Brit expat from York a few weeks ago and he use a lot of irony in the way he joked. I understood most of it but my mom and my brother didn’t get any of it.

Later that night, I was talking with another Brit. He lives in Bath and seasonally does a job here in America. When I asked him sarcastically (with a smirk on my face) if he was planning on moving permanently to America, he looked at me really sternly and said, “NO!”.

By: DonovanRex

DonovanRex — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:47:59 +0000

@Murbella

I am myself in search of as many articles I can find about the differences between American and British humor. Would you be so kind as to share your(or bits from) collection?

As for the general discussion, it is easy to make general claims about what is British and what is American humor, though you can’t just generalise everything into two groups, because there is a very large grey area in between.

By: Jami

Jami — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:13:02 +0000

Dave
All Americans I know would understand your British example. If an American comedian actually used your example sentence most would think he was a moron.