The British sense of humour

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British humour. The British are a rather reserved race and are well known at keeping the stiff upper lip in times of stress and disaster. However when it comes to humour we are quite straight up about it and without realising half the time will take the micky out of ourselves and others. Perhaps the most confusing part of British humour however, is that there is a no ‘off’ button. Almost every conversation between the British is bound to feature some form of irony, teasing, banter, sarcasm, self-deprecation or mockery. This should not be seen as trying to hurt someone it is just our way. I am sure that many non-British English speaking people will find this quite peculiar. When every word exchanged has an undercurrent of humour, it becomes difficult to decipher when someone is joking or being serious. I often used to get away with murder at work because I would be saying things with quite a straight face, making whatever I was saying quite plausible and serious. Some people used to cotton on but I would insist that it was a true tale I was telling. I have managed to get away with things for a few days until in the end I have to burst the bubble. How can we joke and yet keep a straight face. We do, it is how we interact with one another and yet many people will not get the subtlety. Self-deprecation We do not parade or boast about our achievements although some nations will boast about their achievements to us it is viewed as being pompous when someone does. Instead of boasting and blowing our own trumpets, we tend to make light of our shortcomings by being excessively modest and putting ourselves down. Obvious examples of self-deprecating humour include one’s accent, age, physical build, skinny or fat, tall or short, baldness or wearing glasses and prominent features like big ears or nose! Irony and sarcasm Irony and sarcasm forms a large part of our repertoire and if you are talking to someone who may have a straight face the likely hood is that there will be an element of humour in there it may be subtle but it will definitely be there. Understatement. We tend to be underwhelmed by things and resort to dumbing down statement such as “Not bad” really means, “That’s actually quite good”. British speech is full of understatements using such terms as ‘quite’, ‘rather’, ‘a bit’. A ‘spot of bother’ may understate that things are disastrous. Seaside humour. Our humour can be seen particularly at the seaside there would be postcards on sale with cartoon caricatures with some quite smutty sayings on them but they were meant as harmless amusement. I think these days they are mainly very tame because of the PC brigade. The BBC made some brilliant comedies which were full of innuendos and sarcasm. The following programmes will give you some idea of the type of thing I mean. 1. The vicar of Dibley 2. Keeping up appearances. 3. To the manor born. 4. Are you being served. 5. The Good life. These programmes will give you some idea of how daft we can be but at the same time are absolutely hilarious. So what I am trying to get across is that our sense of humour whilst not being full of praise there is definitely approval to some of our comments on posts here! It can be quite easy to misinterpret what we are saying if you are not able to tune into our witty retorts! Tomorrow I may give some examples of some of the sarcasm, irony or banter I have personally used! The picture is an example of the type of cards that were once upon a time great fun from the seaside!