MOSCOW, Idaho – There's a reason comedians call it “dying on stage.”
Research by a Washington State University linguist found that people who tell bad jokes often endure an astonishing outpouring of hostility from the listeners.
“These were basically attacks intended to result in the social exclusion or humiliation of the speaker, punctuated on occasion with profanity, a nasty glare or even a solid punch to the arm,” said researcher Nancy Bell.
We're not talking about jokes that contain offensive material, or the type of slurs unleashed by former “Seinfeld” star Michael Richards. The joke that Bell used in her research was:
“What did the big chimney say to the little chimney?
“Nothing, chimneys can't talk.”
The responses to this childish riddle included insults, glares, silence or even blows.
“The predominant verbal reaction to failed humor in our study was oriented exclusively toward attacking the speaker,” Bell said.
There are several reasons for the strong responses.
First, such canned humor often disrupts the natural flow of conversation. And jokes that fail to deliver humor are a violation of a social contract, so punishing the teller can discourage similar behavior in the future.
Finally, a stupid joke insults the listener by suggesting that he or she might actually find it funny, Bell said.
Bell wrote her doctoral dissertation at Penn on the use of humor by people for whom English is their second language (a source of much comedy in pop culture). Since then she has focused on failed humor because little research has been done.
She recruited her students to slip the joke into normal conversations and then record the results. The chimney joke made it into 207 conversations. An astonishing 44 percent of the reactions were classified as “impolite,” intended to deeply embarrass the joke teller.
The toughest responses came from people who knew the joke teller well, she found. “The younger you are and the closer you are in age to your failed humorist, the more likely you are to attack,” Bell said.
And, no surprise, children were especially hostile to failed humor by their parents, said Bell, an Oregon native.
