I Laugh At Things That Are Funny In The Odd Sense

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DGuru
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11 Jul 2012, 10:25 pm

For example I remember laughing out loud in class at the image in my head of my classmate's aunt turning pale white as she told me she had turned white before she died of a stroke. Another part of the "funny" was that I hadn't been expecting that she had died until she got to that part of the sentence and had already begun laughing at the image before that, then realized since she died from it this was serious and so it was "funny"(odd funny) that I was laughing so I laughed at that. Luckily nobody called me on it.

On a lighter note I laughed during the movie Atlantis when it turned out the girl from Atlantis knew French. This definitely was unexpected for someone living in a place totally cut off from the rest of the world to know any language from above the water.

It seems as though growing up I conflated funny haha and funny odd together, and so conditioned a laughing response to both of them.

Is this related to Asperger's(taking the word "funny" too literally)? Anybody else have similar experiences with the concept of "Funny".



one-A-N
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11 Jul 2012, 10:56 pm

I sometimes laugh (or snort) at figures of speech (like "don't go overboard with that new idea") because I have a vivid and comic mental picture (e.g. of someone waving their arms wildly as they tip over and fall into the water - literally "going overboard"). I understand the figure of speech; I just can't help visualising the literal meaning, and sometimes I laugh at the absurdity of the picture, while other people are totally serious, because they don't think about the literal meaning.

Maybe you were just taken up with the vivid literal image of someone turning white.



DGuru
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11 Jul 2012, 11:35 pm

Another time my mom was saying she thought my Gramma was still "holding a torch" for my Grampa(they've been divorced since she was a kid).

I pictured my Gramma dressed as the statue of liberty holding up a torch and burst out laughing.



KillerWaffles
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11 Jul 2012, 11:38 pm

one-A-N wrote:
I sometimes laugh (or snort) at figures of speech (like "don't go overboard with that new idea") because I have a vivid and comic mental picture (e.g. of someone waving their arms wildly as they tip over and fall into the water - literally "going overboard"). I understand the figure of speech; I just can't help visualising the literal meaning, and sometimes I laugh at the absurdity of the picture, while other people are totally serious, because they don't think about the literal meaning.

Maybe you were just taken up with the vivid literal image of someone turning white.

Sometimes I'll make stupid jokes about the literal meaning. Someone says "Can I see that?" I'll start snickering and then I'll say, "I don't know, if you can't then you should go to the eye doctor." No one else seems to find this funny, though.



vanhalenkurtz
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12 Jul 2012, 2:18 am

I am always finding my way to malapropisms. Some turn into poems, some get me laughing out loud and the really good ones do both. My neighbors say I'm nuts, but I'm laughing more than them. And sometimes, sure, I'm laughing at them, too. Squares.


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FMX
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12 Jul 2012, 2:42 am

Yes, I can totally relate to that. I remember one time I parked my car too close to a neighbour's car, so that she couldn't open her door (or so I was told). It was a hatchback car, so apparently she had to climb in through the back. The person telling me this expected me to be all apologetic, but instead I was barely holding back laughter when I visualised this fat middle-aged woman climbing through the back of her little car.

Quote:
An autistic person's sense of humour is often about things which suggest silliness, ridiculousness or which appear slightly insane.
A non-autistic person's sense of humour is often to do with finding clever ways of pointing out faults in other people and causing them embarrassment.


from http://www.autismsupportnetwork.com/new ... mor-656721

That may be a good way to put it. I definitely much prefer the autistic kind of humour.



man-hands
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12 Jul 2012, 6:22 am

Odd, ironic, off-beat sense of humor with mental images of puns and etc. That's very Aspies. It is this same type of off-beat humor that makes me enjoy cartoons like "The Far side, The Adams Family (original cartoons by Charles adams), Non Sequitor, etc.
And yes, I will be thinking of something that amuses me but laugh out loud---people wonder why the sudden outburst of laughter