Humor (humour in British English) is the ability or quality of people, objects or situations to invoke feelings of amusement in other people. The term encompasses any form of entertainment or human communication which invokes such feelings, or which makes people laugh or feel happy.

English humor Example Chinese humor Example nonverbal mime and farce（哑剧和轻喜剧） Charlie Chaplin, Mr. Bean pantomime（哑剧）王景愚

funny plays（喜剧小品）陈佩撕 funny stories Mark Twain verbal jokes play on words, usually two lines cross talk（相声）jokes 姜昆 马季 funny poems Edward Lear doggerel（打油诗） Note:

Humor is particular to each culture. For example, the British laugh at things that are ridiculous and enjoy parody very much. Chinese humor includes puns, extended cross talk between two comedians etc. The British also enjoys play on words(like puns) but they are more like short jokes.

Warming up by watching and listening

Hi, everyone! We are going to learn about A taste of English humour today. Now watch the slides/ pictures and listen to the English humour poems.

Why worry?

There are only two things to worry about:

Either you are well or you are sick.

If you are well, then there is nothing to worry about.

If you are sick, there are two things to worry about:

Either you will get well or you will die.

If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about.

If you die, there are only two things to worry about:

Either you will go to Heaven or Hell.

If you go to Heaven, there is nothing to worry about.

But if you go to Hell, you will be so damn busy

Shaking hands with friends, you won´t have time to worry. Whose job ...?

This is the story about four people named Everybody,

Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done,

and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that.

because it was Everybody´s job.

Everybody thought Anybody could do it,

but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn´t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody,

When Nobody did what Anybody could have done.