First Post/Introduction

This is the first post for ENG 404 Humor and Rhetoric. My name is Greg Mantych and a junior at Saint Louis University.

I guess since the focus of the course is humor and rhetoric and although we have not indulged into a vast amount of humor theories just yet, I would be doing this posting a disservice if I did not share some sort of opinion on humor. 

Of the assigned texts thus far, "Mrs. Partington" is most visibly humorous because of the heavy use of malapropisms. Substituting "oil-factories" for "olfactory" and "conscientiousness" for "consciousness" are obvious misuses of words and a common comic device for getting laughs (see Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing" and, recalling children's shows of my youth, many of the characters in "Rugrats"). However, why would someone using a word wrong be viewed as humorous? With the extent to which some characters misuse these words, it seems like it should be more sad than funny. However, I think it all comes down to superiority. 

In many modes of humor, especially satire, there are two groups: those who "get it" and those who "don't get it". The people who "get it" find the humor and those who don't, well, don't. With the malapropisms of Mrs. Partington, we laugh at her misusage because we seem to know what she doesn't i.e. the correct definitions of these words. We are trumping our obviously superior knowledge of the English language over hers. It is funny that someone could be so unintelligent but also I think that it makes us feel good about ourselves as well. The superiority theory is a very selfish theory. Those of us who "get it" feel elite and more intelligent than those who don't and in that we find humor. It may not be the nicest form of comedy or the most inclusive but it is one I enjoy nonetheless.