Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of you have a mean pedantry going on.
thats the joke
64.3% of it. 14.3% is a wordplay, and 21.4% is explaining the joke, if you count this post fifty-fifty.
Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
31–40 of 74 posts
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#32There is a reason that it became common practice for an introduction to give a broad overview of the topic. It seriously detracts from the writing when the first paragraph plunges you into deep background, and you don't get a hint as to the supposed topic until halfway through.
I wonder if writing like this, where you don't really get to what the article is about until you're well into it, are because of advertising. I imagine people are more likely to spend more time on the page if they can't it all out of the intro.
I believe so. I think that's why the "inverted pyramid" is so highly regarded, and yet so rarely used in practice. It's because if you go with it, you quickly shed readers who found all the info they wanted partway, and go out to do other things. Which is great if you care about delivering value to readers - and that is not what most ad-driven publications really care about.
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
seems that most posts dedicate first 1-n paragraphs for unnecessary background and/or rehashing of the title. it's as if writers feel the need to ease into the topic as if it was a bucket of ice water for the reader to avoid being startled by
It’s actually just a mark of bad writing. Lots of books do it too, but it’s less common coz you get a lot of practice before you attempt a book. First rule of good writing: Start the story as late as you can get away with. Preferably right before the punchline. Compare: 1) I woke up that morning, showered, put on my shoes, and went on a hike. It was a beautiful day the sun was shining the bees were buzzing. I walked…
But there's a difference between a story for the purpose of entertainment vs an expository story. The former are quite rare on HN.
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#34For just once could we not downvote jokes here? The topic is humor. One HN thread of jokes won’t turn this place into reddit.
That's what they all say.
You let one joke in, and the next day you have to scroll through thousands of pictures of Pepe the Frog on a bloated app that tracks your every scroll.
If you want to avoid that, you have to nuke all humor from orbit. That's the only way to be sure.
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#35Very weak article, as pointed out by other comments. There isn't even the beginning of a proof of a connection between wit and exaggeration, and the examples don't help.
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#36I felt like this article over-promised and under-delivered. There was a lot of ink spilled on the animal kingdom, and a weak/unconvincing analogy to human humor.
All articles that purport to explain how some aspect of the human mind works (in this case, why exaggeration jokes trigger the emotional response they do) inevitably fail miserably. This is simply due to the fact that science has basically nothing meaningful to say about human experience, other than to draw vague correlations between it and fMRI scans or lesion studies. For god's sake, we don't even know why/how Ibuprofen works...what kind of moronic hubris makes an Atlantic writer think they can illuminate anything worthwhile about something as complex as humor?
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#37There is a reason that it became common practice for an introduction to give a broad overview of the topic. It seriously detracts from the writing when the first paragraph plunges you into deep background, and you don't get a hint as to the supposed topic until halfway through.
This has been how storytelling has been done for centuries, it’s a a mark of thoughtful feature writing. The Atlantic is over 100 years old and extremely prestigious, it’s resonable to assume that at least from a technical writing standpoint they know what they are doing and do it on purpose.
It’s not writing intended for a textbook or academic paper. It’s a story. You’re supposed to read it and get introduced to things and discover the themes of the story gradually.
I see a variation of this criticism of a long form feature about every week or so on HN. It’s sort of equivalent to a person walking into a modern art museum and asking why the artists didn’t just paint the pictures so they look exactly like the thing the artist was looking at when he painted the picture.
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#38There is a reason that it became common practice for an introduction to give a broad overview of the topic. It seriously detracts from the writing when the first paragraph plunges you into deep background, and you don't get a hint as to the supposed topic until halfway through.
This has been how storytelling has been done for centuries, it’s a a mark of thoughtful feature writing. The Atlantic is over 100 years old and extremely prestigious, it’s resonable to assume that at least from a technical writing standpoint they know what they are doing and do it on purpose. It’s not writing intended for a textbook or academic paper. It’s a story. You’re supposed to read it and get introduced to thi…
In the age of tweets, memes, and captions, it has simply become such criticism to even surface to the top. I usually ignore critiques of long form story telling.
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#39> The same principle is at work in verbal wit. The English film director Anthony Asquith, for example, once introduced Jean Harlow, the platinum-blond 1930s Hollywood star, to his mother, Lady Margot Asquith, the author and wife of the longtime British prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith. Harlow mispronounced Lady Margot’s first name, sounding the final t, as in forgot. “The t is silent, my dear,” Asquith snipped, “…
Yes, she was implying harlot. It was just a joke, I don’t know how you turned a throw away one liner into a blog post...
Re: Why Exaggeration Jokes Work
#40I felt like this article over-promised and under-delivered. There was a lot of ink spilled on the animal kingdom, and a weak/unconvincing analogy to human humor.
All articles that purport to explain how some aspect of the human mind works (in this case, why exaggeration jokes trigger the emotional response they do) inevitably fail miserably. This is simply due to the fact that science has basically nothing meaningful to say about human experience, other than to draw vague correlations between it and fMRI scans or lesion studies. For god's sake, we don't even know why/how Ibup…
> For god's sake, we don't even know why/how Ibuprofen works...
I bet physicists also assert that bumblebees cannot possibly fly, right? For God’s sake...
“NSAIDs such as ibuprofen work by inhibiting the cyclooxygenase (COX) enzymes, which convert arachidonic acid to prostaglandin H2 (PGH2). PGH2, in turn, is converted by other enzymes to several other prostaglandins (which are mediators of pain, inflammation, and fever) and to thromboxane A2 (which stimulates platelet aggregation, leading to the formation of blood clots).”