Hi Billy,

On Oct 10, 2012, at 7:51 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> At the University of Colorado, Boulder, marketing and psychology professor 
> Peter McGraw has been mulling over this puzzle since 2008 and at last, he and 
> his fellow researchers have put a finger on an answer: Humour equals tragedy 
> plus time.
> 
> 
Not quite.  A more general formulation is 'incongruity plus emotional 
distance'.  Time is only one way to get such distance (witness the power of 
ethnic jokes)

Tragedy is about the breaking of emotional expectations, Humor is about 
breaking logical expectations.

-- Ernie P.

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