So today my teacher gave us this article in class.

*Bill Bryson is a best-selling American travel writer who has lived in both the US and the UK. He has written several humorous books and many articles about British and American life.*

Here's my tip of the week. Don't make jokes in America. Even in experienced hands, a joke can be a dangerous thing. I came to this conclusion recently while passing through Customs and Immigration at Logan airport in Boston. As I approached the last immigration official, he said to me, "Any fruit or vegetables?"

I considered for a moment. "Sure, why not?" I said "I'll have four pounds of potatoes and some mangoes, if they're fresh".
Instantly, I could see that I had misjudged my audience. He Looked at me with one of those slow, dark expressions that you never want to see in a uniformed official, but especially in a US Customs and Immigration officer.

Luckily he appeared to conclude that I was incredibly stupid. "Sir", he enquired more specifically, "are you carrying any item of fruit or vegetable?" "No, sir, I am not", I answered at once and gave him the most respectful look I believe I have ever given anybody in my life. I left him shaking his head. I am sure that for the rest of his carerr he will always be telling people about the idiot who thought he was a greengrocer.

The same happened another time when I was talking to my neighbour about a disastrous airline trip which had left me stranded overnight in Denver. "Who did you flight with?" he asked.

"I don't know" I replied. "They were all strangers". He looked at me with an expression of panic.
"No, I meant which airline did you fly with," he said. Soon after this my wife ordered me to stop making jokes with him, as our conversations were giving him migraine.

"Irony"of course the key word here. Americans don't use it very much. (I'm being ironic; they don't use it at all.) The English writer Howard Jocabson says that Americans don't have sense of humour. Actually he is wrong. Many of the funniest people who ever lived were or are Americans, such as the Marx brothers or Woody Allen. But it is certainly true that wit and sense of humour are not valued as much in America as they are in Britain. The comedian John Cleese once said; "An Englishman would rather be told that he was a bad lover than that he had no sense of humour".

It isn't that there are no people with an active sense of humour in America, it's just that there are fewer of them. When you meet one it's like I imagine it must be when two Masons recognize each other across a crowded room. The last time I experienced this was a few weeks ago when I arrived at our local airport and approached a cab for a ride home "Are you free?" I innocently asked the driver. He looked at me with an expression I recognized at once, the look of someone who can see the chance of a joke, "No, he said, "I charge like everyone else" I could almost hugged him.

Discuss.

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i heard alot of good things about bill bryson but havnt had time to pick up any of his books .... maybe i'll grab one for my trip........

i do know that english people have a different sense of humour than westerners, their jokes are more clever (lot of play on words etc) and not just penis and vagina jokes that everyone here makes...

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lol

there are good jokes, and there are clean jokes.

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It's true, no one has a sense of humor these days. If someone says something completely stupid, and you reply with something funny, they perceive it as a smart ass remark.

Case in point: True story.

As you may or may not know, I work for a garage door opener company in their customer service. I spend all day talking to people troubleshooting issues, placing orders, etc etc. And like any other call center, we usually get calls from lazy or completely retarded people all day. Half the day people say stupid shit, and I just want to make a funny remark, but seeing as how no one has a sense of HUMOR, less the people who right off the bat say something like 'Treat me like I'm dumbass', I don't want to offend anyone. This lady I spoke to this past Thursday really took the cake.

I did my usual greeting: "Thank you for calling Genie Customer Care, my name is Andrew. How may I help you?"

And this was her reply: "Hi, Danger, was it?"

.....I had to restrain myself from saying "No, ma'am, Danger is my middle name."

/sigh @ ppl w/ no sense of humor. :<

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LOL. I almost did tht in the airport @ immigration wen i went to see up last year.

Immigration guy asked: "How much currency are u bringing into the country?"

I was so fkn tempted to reply (with my little finger in the corner of my mouth) "1 billion dollars!!!!!!!"

But then i thght against it as i didn't quite fancy the rubber glove treatment and i don't think he wud have found it funny.

Any ways meh

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