THE ELEMENTS OF WIT: 5 WAYS TO BE SMARTER, FUNNIER, AND
BETTER AT PARTIES
At
any party, there’s always one person who can make other people
laugh, seemingly without effort. Maybe she's the master of
interesting banter or the silent type, who suddenly fires off a
perfectly timed comeback. In the presence of such a person, it’s
natural to wonder: why can’t I be that witty? Perhaps you
can. Elements
of Wit: Mastering the Art of Being Interesting by
Canadian journalist Benjamin
Errett is
a kind of how-to guide for those of us who would like our mots to be
a little more bon.
The
Oxford American Dictionary defines
wit as, “mental sharpness and inventiveness; keen intelligence.”
But what does that really mean? Smart people can be boring. And funny
people can be dumb. Nor is wit synonymous with humor. “Christopher
Hitchens is very witty but he’ll rarely make you laugh out loud,”
says Errett. Meanwhile, “Tom Stoppard is a deep wit,
but Rosencrantz
And Guildenstern Are Dead is
pretty bleak.”
To
Errett, wit is a form of “spontaneous creativity.” It’s saying
the perfect thing at the perfect time and in a manner that both
surprises and delights the people who are listening. And it’s not
just the realm of the Victorian drawing room. “Rap is a great
example of wit,” says Errett. “The spontaneous word play. The
twists and turns of phrases.” Whether you’re in the elevator with
an acquaintance or trying to impress your boss at a board meeting,
“You want to make people glad that you opened your mouth.” The
question is: how?
WIT TAKES WORK
The
first order of business, according to Errett, is to consume “a good
diet of high quality witty material.” The more you read, hear and
watch, the better primed your brain will be to produce its own witty
thoughts. Errett recommends the essays of Christopher Hitchens, the
poetry of Ogden Nash, and the plays of Tom Stoppard. “Everything
that Louis C.K. has ever done,” he says. Listen closely to the word
play of Jay Z and read books by Nora Ephron. It’s also helpful to
remember that even the greatest wits--Churchill and Wilde--weren’t
just naturally and effortlessly creative when it came to repartee.
“They were repurposing a lot of great lines that they’d read, and
heard and come up with themselves,” explains Errett. They weren’t
exactly stealing the wit of others, but like many artists, they
learned to put their own twist on the material they’d gathered.
“Time and effort went into making sure that their lines appeared to
be of the moment,” Errett says.
FAKE IT BUT DON’T FORCE IT
Of
course, there’s a right and a wrong way to repurpose. Jay Z carried
a notebook of rhymes with him to open mics until he became familiar
enough with the material--and confident enough--to deploy it without
a cheat sheet. But merely having witty lines on the tip of your
tongue doesn’t make you witty. “Wit is not
quoting Onion headlines
or The
Simpsons,”
says Errett. “Monty Python is brilliant,” he adds, “But
references to their sketches that aren’t specifically relevant to
the conversation, can easily take people out of the moment.” And
speaking of the moment--remember that wit is about spontaneity.
Errett points to a great example from the British Office,
in which Ricky Gervais’s co-workers stand around awkwardly while he
attempts to think up dessert puns to describe Gareth’s stapler in
jelly. It’s a classic example of attempted wit gone utterly wrong.
FOR GOD’S SAKE, PAY ATTENTION
Nora
Ephron said that “all life is copy,” and in her novel Heartburn,
“she took the events that happened to her--like her divorce--and
turned them into material,” explains Errett. But in order for
biography to function as wit fodder, you’ve got to pay close
attention to the events and experiences of your daily life, even when
they seem incredibly mundane. You may not consider a coffee break or
a car
ride with
friends as having the optimal conditions for wit. But as long as
you’ve been paying close attention to the conversation, there are
always opportunities to riff. A great example of this is “the call
back,” when someone makes reference to a point made an hour
earlier, but does so in relation to a new topic. “The call back
works because it shows you were in the moment and you were
interested,” says Errett. “You weren’t thinking about the phone
in your pocket or what you’re going to have for lunch.” The tools
and tricks you’ve learned from studying the great wits are useless
without fresh material to sculpt.
SPIT IT OUT ALREADY
In Hamlet,
just before Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude that the prince is
insane, he makes the now famous statement, “brevity is the soul of
wit.” In a lot of ways, the best wit is very much like ripping off
a Band-Aid: swift and snappy. Keep a joke going for too long or
extend the pun into a rambling metaphor, and the witty remark loses
its punch. Fortunately, says Errett, we have a perfect tool with
which to hone our wit: Twitter. The 140-character limit mandates
brevity. And the threat of your witty line disappearing without
either a retweet or favorite, should (in theory), compel you to
practice your craft. As Errett says, “You have to delete many more
tweets than you write.” It may not be a case of spontaneous
creativity, but it will likely feel that way to your followers.
Dorothy
Parker, who spoke these words, would be disappointed to know that
these days, we’re more familiar with the calisthenics. “Wit no
longer has much meaning in society because it gets conflated with
snark, and sarcasm and cattiness,” says Errett. He admits that a
lot of wit does contain cruelty, (“especially the British
definition”), but using spontaneous creativity as a means of
critical social commentary is very different than attacking your
opponent simply because you can, or because it’s fun or out of some
self-righteous belief in your own superiority. To Errett, wit is most
advantageous when used for forces of good. “I’d rather it be
compassionate,” he says. Because in the end, high-spirited,
feel-good witty conversation is “our optimum existence,” what
Errett considers “the ultimate goal for human beings as a social
animal.” Now if only wit could solve world hunger.
BY JENNIFER
MILLER
http://www.fastcocreate.com/3037361/the-elements-of-wit-5-ways-to-be-smarter-pithier-and-more-fun-at-parties?utm_source
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