Hi
Could you please tell me the difference between
‘Dead humour’ and ‘Dry humour’
Tom
PS: Is dry humour a positive quality or negative?
Dry (sense of) humour is where you make jokes without seeming to know they are funny. I’d say it’s a positive trait.
‘Dead humour’ doesn’t sound positive, though I’m not sure what it means. In what context did you find the expression? To me, it suggests having no sense of humour or, perhaps, a death related humour.
Hi Tom
Did you mean “deadpan humor”?
Amy
Many thanks and sorry!
Yes.
Tom
By the way (sorry the off-topic, Tom), which expression do you prefer to use for so-called “black humour”?
My dictionary gives as ‘variants’:
grim humor
macabre humor
sick humor
gallows humor
:roll:
Hi Tom
I think the expressions are pretty similar.
This Wikipedia write-up might be interesting for you:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_humor
Amy
Deadpan humor, just as the Wikipedia article says, is the type of humor you see in old Buster Keaton movies, where the most outrageous things happen to a character, and his face shows no emotion. Deadpan humor can be extremely hilarious.
Dry humor is much different. It generally means that what someone says is humorous, but it’s not really funny enough to get much of a laugh. You often hear dry humor from engineers and very technical people. Many of those guys can tell lighthearted jokes, but they’re seldom a barrel of laughs.
When Americans use the term dry humor, it usually means, “I can’t see why that’s funny, but all those British people are laughing at it, so I suppose I should laugh too.” Americans frequently say that the British have “dry humor” when they don’t find some British joke or gag funny or when they think the British humor is kind of stupid but they don’t want to condemn it. In situations like this, the British humor often involves an Englishman trying to stay calm and polite in situations where an American would see no need to keep his cool, and so the American doesn’t understand what the joke is in the situation. Americans also find it odd that so much British humor involves men wearing dresses.
We do, however, tend to like comic novels from the UK.
While I agree that Americans often associate “dry humor” with the British, I totally disagree that it usually means that we (Americans) don’t think dry humor is funny. Dry humor is often downright hilarious. But it’s subtle and not obvious. So, if you’re not paying attention, you may well miss the joke.
Amy
Yes, I agree that dry humor can be hilarious, but I’m saying that Americans often use the term “dry humor” to explain British humor that they don’t think is funny!
Why did the chicken cross the road?
She just want to get to the other side!