Funny Business

Michael MDiv Dolan

Description

Hey, lighten up! And help your customers and co-workers have a little fun too. There's nothing like Funny Business available anywhere (that's why we wrote it). Find out how to put humor in your writing – and get away with it! Memos, letters, social media – make it all a little funnier.

Here's just some of what you'll get:
- The Basics of a Working Joke
- Why Humor is a Good Idea at Work
- The secret to puns
- Science Discovers Keys to Humor
- Business Jokes

Sujets

• Humor
• Professional
• Business

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780971018228
• Langue: English

Extrait

Funny Business
Putting Humor In Your Writing
 


2 nd Edition, 2011
All applicable rights reserved by the publisher.
Published in eBook format by Dolan Management
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9710-1822-8
Dolan Management
1001 SW 5 th Ave #1100
Portland OR 97204-1127
[e-mail]
 


“Humor is one of God's most marvelous gifts. Humor gives us smiles, laughter, and gaiety. Humor reveals the roses and hides the thorns. Humor makes our heavy burdens light and smoothes the rough spots in our pathways. Humor endows us with the capacity to clarify the obscure, to simplify the complex, to deflate the pompous, to chastise the arrogant, to point a moral, and to adorn a tale.”
-- Sam Ervin , U.S. Senator from North Carolina (yes, the Watergate one)
“I don’t tell jokes. I tell the truth.”
-- Groucho Marx
“Humor is a universal language. It’s a contagious emotion and a natural diversion. It brings other people in and breaks down barriers. Humor is the one thing we can have control over. When someone is laughing, negative emotions are put in the background so that people are able to experience happier emotions.”
-- Ruth Hamilton , director of the Carolina Humor and Healing Association
“ Almost every major figure in the history of philosophy has proposed a theory, but after 2500 years of discussion there has been little consensus about what constitutes humor.”
-- International Encyclopedia of Philosophy
 


The Responsible Party
Thanks for reading our report. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Often during the Writing for Action workshops I’ve done, many people ask me about putting humor in their memos and letters. I’ve collected many of my thoughts in this report and added a few work jokes.
-- Michael Dolan,
trainer and author of
Write Better and Get Ahead at Work
 
Good Morning
This book fulfills a promise. Many people in my business writing classes have asked me about using humor in writing. Usually I give them a little suggestion -- often a warning -- then say I will put something together later. This is later.
You can find several books on humor. Many books on business. And plenty of books on writing. But hardly any on writing business humor. This book is a dawn of a new era. Except that it’s the expanded second edition so it must be the less heralded noonish of a new era.
You’ll find the information here to be useful for all forms of writing: memos, emails, reports, tweets and more. Write on paper or online. It all applies. In fact, there is nothing about the new media that overtakes the suggestions here. Brevity, after all, is the soul of wit. And brevity is exactly what today’s Internet-damaged brain craves so much. Much of this book is cheap and juvenile – just what online media excels at. Some of this book is not cheap and juvenile.
Although I tell you what to do in this book, I don’t expect you to just do that stuff. My goal here is to encourage new and creative humor. I will have accomplished my goal if no work place ever again is subjected to a blonde joke or a “Chinese” proverb. At the same time, I’ll give you the benefit of my long years of accidentally offending people. I know how to avoid that. Likely you are faced daily with the universally dreaded assistant department manager. He aches from lack of real authority so must daily show greater allegiance to his corporate master than you. Humor is not among his scarce skills. He or she may have a different title but these boobs are easy to identify. They are easy to handle but you can’t be sloppy. They can burn with envy when they fear your wit will make you popular.
Look for new ways to apply humor at work – even in unlikely places. A friend of mine says a good place for humor is collection letters. “People are having a hard time already,” she says. “So why not give them something to laugh about.” I can’t say I’ve seen this work. But she says she has a great collection rate and the work is less stressful. Funny business works in this unlikely place because her humor is a natural extension of her work style
And here is the first of many mentions of this technique: “Look it up.” One of the great values of the Internet is freeing writers from laboring over previously required but usually boring passages of background. You are likely a few key strokes away from a search engine. I try to avoid discussing what you can find easily online.
Whether you are the office wit with a history of funny or just a schlub looking for a way to draw attention, you’ll enjoy this book. It’s not about real business writing. I have another book for that, “”Write Better and Get Ahead at Work,” a practical thorough and serious effort, wielding humor only as counter point. “Funny Business” avoids the information in that tome, with only slight overlaps. The main one is coming up soon. It is George Orwell's Simple Rules for Writing.
1 . Never use a metaphor, simile or other combination of words that you are used to seeing in print.
2 . Never use a long word when a short one will do.
3 . If you can cut a word, cut it.
[Or: When in doubt, leave it out.]
4 . Prefer verbs in the active voice to verbs in the passive voice.
5 . Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6 . Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous
Aren't they neatly elegant? The thrust of the message in these rules is to rely on yourself. Don't copy other phrases just because you have seen them often in memos; create your own sentences unique to your situation. Instead of using long words or complicated wording in order to impress, write simply in plain language. Finally, be active. That's it. The key to effective writing at work — as elsewhere — is sincere expression of what's in your heart. Most writers need to remove the clutter of bad habits rather than add any skill they currently lack. These rules are from Orwell’s outstanding and enduring essay “Politics and the English Language.” Look it up. (See how the background plan works?)
George Orwell is one thinker I admire and respect. You will soon see another person I put in that same category is Steve Allen. If you combined George Orwell and Steve Allen, you would be arrested in 23 states (misdirection; see Chapter 3).
This book is totally practical. I mean it to go to work for you at work today. After dissecting exactly what a joke is, we cover main joke forms. Illustrations mostly come from the world of work. All types of work. Because funny is serious, I actually provide some history of how we got here – humor changes over time. And I provide high tone information about why humor is important and useful at work. While academic, this section too is useful in defense of your hilarious new personality.
The book is leavened with business humor. Of course, you would never steal this material or make slight alternations to apply to your situation. You would use it “homage” to this book, made all the more sacred by omitting credit.
That’s about enough of this. Now on to work!
The Basics of a Working Joke
Two part construction: set up and punchline.
Today, humor usually means jokes. We need to get away from the old idea that a joke has to be a rigid cliché that starts out something like “A man walks into a bar.” Humor in writing relies on the “joke structure” but often the actual sentences are much more subtle.
Nonetheless, we need to recognize that every joke has two parts, the “set up” and the “punchline.” The punch line is the part we remember. When people say they are not good at telling jokes, they usually mean they don’t remember or know how to do the set up.
To err is human but to really foul things up you need a computer.
The set up is before the word but. The punchline is after. Even this simple, one sentence joke has both parts of a joke. People frequently fail at being humorous in their writing because they go straight to the punchline without a sufficient set up.
Conceal the punchline with misdirection
An important element of humor is surprise. People often laugh simply because they are surprised. Ever walk around a corner and almost run into someone coming from the other direction? Did you laugh? The only humor here is surprise. So start the joke by pointing in one direction and take your reader the other way.
One thing about mischievous youngsters is they get their parents home from the party early.
This joke seems to be about young people and keeping them out of trouble. Instead, it ends with the recognition that even adults like to get in trouble from time to time.
But at work announce the joke
People laugh at comedy clubs because they want to laugh. They expect to be entertained. Not so for the typical reader of your work memo. You have to first establish that expectation. Use phrases such as “a funny thing happened”; “isn’t it odd when”; or “you’ll love this.” The possibility for misunderstanding in written humor is immense. Much humor, in fact, depends on misdirection as we just noted. But don’t allow your little joke to be taken the wrong way. Usher your reader into the realm of humor. Then move on.
Use self-depreciation but don’t put yourself down
Many people are familiar within this form. It’s a natural for work. A common type of humor is making fun of others – even to the point of cruelty. We know that’s not appropriate in the work place. So we do something similar by making fun of ourselves – somebody who would have great difficulty stabbing us in the back. Beginning humor writers trying to break into the business almost turn to this type of humor. You’ve seen newspaper columns about the beset upon character who has troubles all day long. The urge to make fun or yourself – which does not create enemies – is a strong one and often works out. But once again be careful at work. Don’t get so carried away with being funny that you put yourself in a bad