Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques : Page 132

Wit and humor are obvious desiderata in a conversationalist. If anyone could set down a sure-fire prescription for being witty he would be more popular than Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. It cannot be done. The best a writer can do is to make people at least try to get a bit of wit into their conversation, offer a few helpful hints, and let it go at that. Humor comes from the unexpected, from the surprise viewpoint. A woman visiting the zoo asks if the hippopotamus is male or female. If the keeper, taking an unexpected viewpoint, answers, "That is a matter that should be of interest only to another hippopotamus," surely there is humor. Someone asks the shortest way from here to Tweak City, and the other answers, "A straight line." One asks, "How long should the period of courtship be," and the other answers, "It should be a point at the end of the aisle." Things like that, taking the viewpoint no one expects, are the best device for humor. Less desirable but sometimes effective is exaggeration. "The town is so small that turning around once you see it twice." "That fellow was so slow, molasses in January waved back at him." Once I heard a stenographer say: "I am so low