To Wit: An E-zine On How To Be a Wit
09/15/2008

This is an E-zine from Thomas Christopher on how to be witty.

WITTY SELF-EXPRESSION PRODUCTS

I'm offering T-shirts and other self-expression products designed using the techniques discussed here. I've set up an online "store" at wittyselfexpression.com. I expect to use many of the designs as examples in this e-zine.

USING A PAIRING SHEET

An easy way to create antithesis and chiasmus is use a "pairing sheet." Antithesis consists of a pair of phrases with opposite words in the equivalent positions, for example, "easy come; easy go." Chiasmus consists of a pair of clauses with words or phrases in the opposite order, for example: "We can't do all that the world needs, but the world needs all that we can do."

You use a pairing sheet to compare two things. A pairing sheet is easy to make: take a sheet and draw a line down the center. Write associations of one thing down the left and the corresponding associations of the other down the right. These associations could be facts, but for comedy or politics, they can just as easily be guesses, canards, and stereotypes.

Then go down the sheet and see if the associations on the two sides can be phrased as an antithesis or a chiasmus or even just as an interesting contrast.

To demonstrate this, we need a pair of topics. Let's try it comparing the North and the South. Why? Because it's best for humor if you pick something you are hostile to. I come from a border state and have many relatives in the South. After I moved to the North, I felt free. When I visit the South, I feel heavy social pressure on me.

Here are some memories I have:

• When a Southern woman found out I approved of the ACLU, she moved a plate of brownies two inches further away from me—a beautifully symbolic gesture, I thought.
• I came up with a line that I've gotten a lot of agreement with: "In the South, everybody is warm and friendly to you as long as they think you're just like they are. In the North, everybody is cold and aloof as long as they think you're not like they are."
• In Chicago I met a black man from the South who couldn't relate to that statement. People in the South were not "warm and friendly" to him. His positive statement about the South was, "At least you know where you stand with them."
• There's Faulkner's line: "In the South the past is not dead. It's not even past."

I'm taking a risk here. You probably do not share my hostility, so my attempted humor may fall flat and my associations for the South may strike you as false. But just to show you how this actually works, I didn't edit it to remove embarrassing prejudices. It is close to what everybody creates at first. If your first attempts don't embarrass you, you're censoring yourself too early, you're not allowing yourself to explore widely enough.

Here is what I got on a pairing sheet:

There were places where I was feeling my way toward thoughts and tried several times before I came close enough.

Here are lines I came up with using this pairing sheet:

The North is the land of cold weather and cold people; the South is the land of warm weather and warm people.

In the South, the past is still present. In the North, the present is almost past.

In the South, the past is the present. In the North, the future is.

In the South, it is more important to keep interactions pleasant than to be sincere. In the North, it's vice versa.

In the South and the North, people will say exactly what they think about you. In the North, they'll say it to your face.

Traditionally in the South, blacks have given the whites an opportunity to act like Northern whites do to each other.

Northerners are concerned about being called racist. Blacks give them the opportunity to act the way Southern whites do to each other.

In the South, you can say anything you want about someone, as long as he isn't present and you say "bless his heart."

They speak a lot slower in the South than in the North. A Northerner can comment on your personal habits, morals, ancestry, and eventual destination in the amount of time it takes a Southerner to say "bless your heart."

The North is still the "Free States."

In the North and the South, people mind their own business. In the South, they think your life is their business.

Appomattox and Reconstruction shook the South deeply. Southern culture is a group PTSD.

Remember, I started this with one saying, an attitude, and a few memories. After preparing a pairing sheet, I have a long list of well-phrased, albeit sarcastic lines. Reasonably well phrased, that is: they are first drafts and can benefit from editing.

Are these lines fair? Are they accurate? Are they usable in standup comedy? All that is to be determined later. The point is to get the material first and then edit it. Pairing sheets give you a way to create a lot of material quickly.

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