Copyright Paula S. Jordan 2012
Falstaff by Eduard von Grützner
What’s the difference?
Something I’ve wondered about, and vaguely thought I understood. And then I looked it up. Here’s what I found.
Humor seems to be pretty clear in everyone’s mind. It is:
… a form of communication that is judged to be amusing and makes others laugh. (psychologyandsociety.com)
… forms of expression that elicit amusement or laughter (answers.Yahoo.com)
Or: (ahem)
… the name given to the psychic process that operates in the field of the preconscious, based on the dynamic interrelation between the agencies of the mind, and akin to a defense mechanism, consisting of an unexpected re-evaluation of the demands of reality that reverses their painful emotional tone and thereby offers to the triumphant ego that yield of pleasure which enables it to demonstrate its invulnerable narcissism. (answers.Yahoo.com)
So humor is the umbrella, and other laugh-related terms, including wit, are subsets of it.
Wit seems to have enjoyed (or endured) a variety of definitions across the centuries. Fortunately for brevity, they fall into two distinct camps. The first, dating from Renaissance times, is something like humor with intelligence and/or learning:
… intellectual keenness and a capacity of ‘invention’ by which writers could discover surprisingly appropriate figures and conceits, by perceiving resemblances between apparently dissimilar things. (Literary Dictionary: Wit)
Wit also implies intelligence and quick thinking (answers.Yahoo.com)
Wit is funny because of the sudden sharpness and quick perception. (Lost reference. Apologies.)
But wit, it is said, took a vicious turn in the early 20th century:
As in the wit of Parker’s set, the Algonquin Round Table, witty remarks may be intentionally cruel (as in many epigrams), and perhaps more ingenious than funny.(answers.Yahoo.com)
An example — and definition — from Ms. Parker:
“Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words” (Dorothy Parker, quoted in Answers.Yahoo.com).
And more opinion:
“Humor is inclusive: it invites everyone to join in on the laugh and feel like one of the crowd. Wit is exclusive: it addresses itself only to those who are in the know, and if the other people in the room feel uncomfortable because they don’t get it — hey, that’s a bonus.” (John Simon, in his book Paradigms Lost, quoted by Ben Varkentine on his blog “A Dragon Dancing With the Buddha”
The Literary Dictionary also speaks of:
“… the narrower modern idea of amusing verbal cleverness.”
Hmmm. While some might find much of 20th and 21st century humor to be more confrontational or competitive, and perhaps intellectually narrower, than previous times, that might also be said of 20th/21st century culture in general. I certainly would not accept those qualities into the definition of wit alone.
I see and appreciate it as those witty Renaissance folks did:
“…the nimble work of an imaginative mind that pleases both the intellect and the funny bone.” (Paula S. Jordan, Darkcargo.com)
Oh! I discovered something delicious along the way, a French term: esprit d’escalier, which is “the thing one should have said that typically comes to mind too late to be of any use.” (answers.Yahoo.com)
Been there, needed that!
P.S. I’m about ¾ of the way through The Shadow of the Sun by one Barbara Friend Ish. This is not a fast read. It is a delicious, deeply involving, move-in-and-bring-a-suitcase read that I am enjoying tremendously. I sense a book review coming on….
