DR. FRANK CRANE'S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 172, 11 October 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE'S DAILY EDITORIAL

CAN AN ENGLISHMAN SEE A JOKE? (Copyright, 1927) TTISTORICAL note. J " L The American idea that an Englishman can’t see the point of a joke is of long standing. It began when the second generation of Pilgrims began telling newcomers the one about the man who said: ‘‘No, that wasn t a lady, it was my wife.” ~ , . , Maybe it began even before that. At any rate, it is widely accepted to-day. Stories of untold number have been retailed about the country con* cerning honest Britons who burst into guffaws one day, two days, a week, even a month, after hearing a joke. Many people in America even believe that a law had to be passed in London prohibiting the telling of jokes in vaudeville shows on Saturday night because so many people laughed out loud in church on Sunday. As a matter of fact it seems that an Englishman can see the point of an American joke as well as anyone else. But when he sees the point he doesn’t see any humour in it.. He chuckles at a different brand of humour. What Americans think: uproarious may not seem funny at all to him. For instance, the old reliable one about the hunter who .killed all the birds roosting on a quarter-mile of zig-zag rail fence by beading the barrel, of his gun to match the twisting of the fence elicits no loud ha-ha on The Tight Little Isle.” There it isn't a joke. It is just a lie. • Native American humour runs to absurdities and exaggerations; English humour to word-play, puns and personalities. . . So when an Englishman doesn’t laugh at an American joke it is not always indicative that he does not see: the point; it just doesn’t seem funny, Derl Another source of the American idea that the English can’t see a joke is hinted at in the tale of the American who told “the latest from. America” t<J “rnefhe finished he slapped his knee with glee, but his friend sat unmov?.^Y e H you W in laugh at that next year,” he said. “Oh, no,” blinked the Englishman, “I laughed at that last year. ’