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Laughter - the secret of good health
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Scientific facts that make laughter the world's best medicine
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Be the soul of the party.Find favour with your associates in business,or social circles!
Get going with Laughter-the Secret of Good Health!
In fact,the fastest way to break the ice in many a situation is to crack a joke. Which is why Danish pianist Victor Borge had quipped: Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
This book is replete with humorous one-liners, quips, quotes and anecdotes that will have you rolling with laughter.
The book also dwells on famous humourists and other personalities with a sharp sense of humour, including Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi, amongst others.
Jokes apart, laughter also has multiple therapeutic benefits, as attested by medicalmen--and elucidated by oft-repeated maxim,Laughter is the best medicine.
Indeed, in March 1995, the first Laughter Club was launched by a Mumbai-based doctor precisely for its therapeutic benefits.
This book also tells you all about the scientific benefits of laughter. So read, laugh and be merry!For therein lies the secret of good health and happiness.
About the author:
S.P. Sharma is a retired multinational executive whose interests range from art and literature to music, sports, religion and philosophy.
Thanks to a keen interest in public affairs too, he has contributed thought-provoking articles to leading Indian periodicals.
This time around, the author has turned his pen to humour, adding another colourful feather to his cap.
His previous titles, published by Pustak Mahal, are: Success Through Positive Thinking, Romantic Love – Its Trials, Tribulations & Triumphs, Youngsters’ Guide for Personal Development and Treasury of Inspirational Thoughts.
Contents:1. The Wisdom of Laughter
2. The Universal Language of Merriment
3. Laughter — The Effective Medicine
4. Printing Howlers
5. The Tale of Funny Names
6. Who’s Who in Contemporary Politics
7. Spoonerism and Malapropism
8. Witty Abraham Lincoln
9. Laughs from Kerala
10. The ‘Originality’ of Humour
11. Laughter Clubs Galore
12. Gandhiji’s Brand of Humour
13. Humorous Legends About Kalidasa
14. The Irrepressible George Bernard Shaw
15. Mark Twain, the Great American Humorist
16. Funnies from Oscar Wilde
17. Incorrigible Winston Churchill
18. Court Jesters of Yore
19. This Strange-n-Funny World
20. Rib Ticklers
IntroductionWhy is laughter so highly prized? The answer is simple. Everyone is seeking happiness in one form or other all the time and laughter and its kin are direct or indirect manifestations of happiness. Obviously, one cannot laugh merrily with an aching heart!
Laughter is as old as mankind. Our ancestors were quite aware of the beneficial effects of a belly laugh. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to know what modern science has to say about the subject. That is why a sensitive article on the subject has been featured in this book.
The present-day youth, frequenting discos and indulging in harmful practices like smoking, drinking and probably drugs too, may not be aware that he is actually seeking happiness. He should know that there are less expensive and more healthy ways to find it. Clean humour, wherever one can find it, is the more natural alternative. Though humour is available on the TV screen or in movies, verbal narration of jokes too could be enjoyable. But a book on humour has the pride of place as one can carry it anywhere, read it any time and laugh.
Laughter is infectious. Share your jokes with others and laugh with them whenever possible. Thereby you will be spreading good cheer and merriment all around, contributing to the well-being of our people.
I dedicate this little volume to humorists of all hues who have undoubtedly made this world a much better place to live in.
—S.P. Sharma Excerpts:Chap. 7. Spoonerism and MalapropismThe word spoonerism originates from the name of Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), an Anglican priest and scholar. He had a tendency for ‘tips of the slung’ (slips of the tongue!), which could have been a natural upshot of his absent-mindedness. Rev. Spooner thus unintentionally became a queer humorist whose very name evoked laughter. He lectured in history, philosophy and divinity at Oxford, where he had a 60-year-long association.
His peculiar knack for transposition of letters and words became so amazingly funny that today it is difficult to differentiate between original spoonerisms and created ones. The word spoonerism found a place in dictionaries as far back as 1885, when Spooner was just 41.
Here are some hilarious samples of Spooner’s absent-mindedness.
* A well-boiled icicle (A well-oiled bicycle)
* Fighting a liar (Lighting a fire)
* Hissed my mystery lecture (Missed my history lecture)
* Tasted two worms (Wasted two terms)
* Queer old dean (Dear old queen)
* The hags flung out (The flags hung out)
* Noble tons of soil (Noble sons of toil)
* A shoving leopard (A loving shepherd)
* It is kistomary to cuss (It is customary to kiss)
* A scoop of boy trouts (A troop of boy scouts)
* A half-warmed fish (A half-formed wish)
* A vast display of cattle ships and bruisers (A vast display of battleships and cruisers)
* Is the bean dizzy? (Is the dean busy?)
Well, it is not unusual for radio broadcasters and TV announcers to occasionally utter ‘tips of the slung’, but Spooner naturally fell into the habit and made history.
Besides spoonerism, there is another word that arouses mirth – malapropism. Unlike spoonerism, there is not much history behind malapropism. The dictionary defines malapropism as comical misuse of a word in mistake for one sounding similar. For example, ‘alligator’ for ‘allegory’ and so on.
Mrs Malaprop is the name of a character in playwright Sheridan’s The Rivals. Naturally, Malaprop is a fictitious person and use of malapropism is a contrived contortion intended to arouse mirth.
Chap. 15. Mark Twain, the Great American HumoristMark Twain was the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was born in 1835. He was America’s leading humorist who used his wit and humour to comment on social, political and moral problems. His best-known works are Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
He used to take on lecturing assignments. In the beginning, he was hesitant and nervous as a lecturer. After some cajoling, Twain agreed to give a lecture in San Francisco. Before he came on stage, his promoters had stationed people at strategic places in the hall to cheer him and get him going. Though unsteady at the start, he opened his lecture with these words: “Julius Caesar is dead, Shakespeare is dead, Napolean and Abraham Lincoln are dead and I am far from well.” There was no need for manipulated cheering. As he proceeded, he had the audience holding their sides with laughter. The lecture was a big success.
Later, Twain went to Europe on lecture tours. While there, an Englishman, who had become Twain’s admirer, made this strange statement: “Mr Clemens, how I wish I had not read your book Huckleberry Finn!” When Mark Twain turned to him for explanation, he concluded: “So that I could again have the pleasure of reading it for the first time.”
Twain would narrate a queer account of his childhood. According to Mark Twain’s story, he was one of the twins born to their mother. They were so much alike that even their mother had difficulty telling them apart. One day, while the nurse was giving them a bath, one of the twins slipped and drowned in the bath tub. “No one knew,” he said, which of the twins was drowned. “And therein lies the tragedy. Everyone thought I was the one that lived, whereas it was I who was actually drowned. It was my brother who lived.” The humour lies, obviously, in the absurdity of the story.
Twain visited the artist Whistler’s studio one day. Looking at the paintings, he was about to touch one canvas, when Whistler cried: “Don’t touch that. Can’t you see it is not dry?”
Mark Twain replied: “I don’t mind. I have gloves on.”
In a lighter vein, Paul Bourgeot remarked to Twain: “Life is never dull for an American. When he has nothing else to do, he can always spend a few years trying to trace his grandfather.”
Never one to be found short of an apt repartee, Twain said: “Right, Your Excellency. But I reckon a Frenchman has got his little standby for a dull time too. He can turn in and see if he can find out who his father was.”
Twain would occasionally attend the sermons of Dr Doane, Rector of a church in Hartford, who later became the Bishop of Albany. One day Twain told him: “Dr Doane, I did enjoy your sermon this morning. You know, I have a book at home which contains every word you uttered in your sermon.”
Dr Doane angrily dared him to send the book if he really had it. The following day, Twain did send him the book – a pocket dictionary!
Mark Twain’s life had its own tragedies, but he kept his head up. He was quite famous by the time death came to him in 1910 at the age of 75.
Here are some of his witty sayings:
* Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it because we are not the person concerned?
* If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference
between a dog and a man.
* There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.
* One of the striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
* Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economise on it.
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