British Wit 101 8/13/02

There are some things the British do so much better than Americans. When they manage to build a motorcycle or a sports car, the vehicles have verve and they sound right. The British make better beer and they generally dress better. An entire genre of music (British Invasion) attests to its cultural dominance over the Yankee alternative.

And, of course, they speak in a wide variety of accents of which those that are close to RP are euphonic and intelligible and a delight to the ear. Listen to Alec Guiness delivering that beautiful soliloquy in Bridge Over the River Kwai and compare that to anything coming out of the pie hole of a Leonardo, a Keanu, or a Cruise. There's no comparison possible: Even if the American is pontificating on the Rights of Man and the Brit is reading the ads at the back of TV Guide, the Englishman sounds like an intelligent lifeform and the American comes across as a ham-fisted fool.

Which brings us to humor. The "Life on Earth" weblog demonstrates the superiority of British wit over the American "gag" (and also generally causes me to spray coffee out my nose and onto my keyboard). They are funnier than we are. It's an acquired taste, to be sure. I recall watching the first season of Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS with my parents. I don't know about you, but at first I didn't get it at all. Remember, American humor at that time was All in the Family and The Carol Burnett Show. We had the sitcom and the variety show, and the British were already at escape velocity.

On this subject, when will the sitcom die? Can't we take it out and shoot the damn thing and bury it along with vaudeville? There hasn't been a good one since [name your favorite from 20 years ago].

What makes the British funnier? They have a certain dryness of observation and understatement that we would do well to study. Say an Englishman and an American are sitting together at an outdoor cafe. On the sidewalk close by a pedestrian slips on some dog crap and hits the ground with a splat as he lands on it. We could imagine the Brit lifting an eyebrow and quipping, "Nice day for a stroll, what?" Or he might say, "Are you done with that section of the paper yet?"

What would the American do? Probably laugh uproariously, gesticulate and state the obvious, "Didja see that? Huh? Didja see that? That guy slipped and fell! Haw haw haw!" Vulgar and stupid.

There's a difference between humor and wit, and unfortunately the latter is increasingly hard to come by. Humor is a practical joke. Wit is pith with good timing. Perhaps no phrase with currency highlights this more saliently than, "I won't even go there." Two American employees of a bank are going over loan applications and notice that one has been filled out by a "John Sexauffendor." When one looks at the other and says, "I won't even go there" it's an admission that wit has failed to rise to a magnificent opportunity.

There probably are a number of things that Americans handle better than their Rightpondian cousins, to be sure, such as the manufacture of self-lighting charcoal and the placement of commas with respect to quotation marks. But when it comes to silliness we're flat-out beaten, as evidenced by England's official Monster Raving Loony Party that fields such candidates in general elections as Colonel Cocoa-Bean Cartwright and Cat-Mandu, a ginger tabby (the MRLP won 25 seats in 2001). [Cartwright pulled 408 votes, or .9% of votes cast in Croyden Central ]

I would almost succumb to despair if it weren't for the mails I get offering me loan drafts. Here's one from CitiBank that's signed by a "Carolyn Fowler," who has enclosed a genuine check I can deposit into my bank account for the princely sum of $2,515.53 - provided I repay across 36 months at 24.99% interest. I suppose this is funny unless you consider that someone out there bites on these things.