Study of Humor

Have the British a peculiar sense of humor? A solemn inquiry into that footless but fascinating question has been doggedly conducted, amid the fury of World War II, by British Psychologist H. J. Eysenck, of London's Mill Hill Emergency Hospital. In spite of many annoyances -- some of his research material was blown up in the bombing of the British Museum, some sunk in transit across the Atlantic -- Mr. Eysenck gathered a great volume of data from both sides of the Atlantic. To de termine whether there are national differences in humor, he pondered hundreds of cartoons and jokes in U.S., British. French and (prewar) German magazines, tried them out on scores of representative citizens. In Character and Personality, Mr. Eysenck reported some surprising conclusions :

P: The notion that there are distinguishable national types of humor seems to be all wrong. When a typical group of Britons and Canadians were asked to identify British, American and German cartoons in a mixed, unlabeled collection, their guesses were no more accurate than pure chance (except when they found a giveaway, such as an American uniform or a car driven along the left side of a road).

P: The unidentified British, American and German cartoons on the average were rated almost equally funny. But the Britons seemed to have a general prejudice in favor of American humor. When they liked a cartoon, they usually labeled it American, even when it was British. Typical comments: "Clever--must be American." "That is very bad--must be German."

P: Mr. Eysenck was forced to admit that U.S.-British differences, though rare, did occasionally crop up. Among a group of limericks, Americans liked this one best:

There was a young man of Laconia,

Whose mother-in-law had pneumonia;

He hoped for the worst,

And after March first

They buried her 'neath a begonia.

The British favorite:

There was a young girl of Asturias,

Whose temper was frantic and furious.

She used to throw eggs

At her grandmother's legs--

A habit unpleasant, but curious.

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