To Wit: An E-zine On How To Be a Wit
12/10/2007

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 on line "store" at CafePress.com: www.CafePress.com/wittyexpression My portal site to CafePress and Printfection.com is wittyselfexpression.com. I expect to use many of the designs as examples in this e-zine.

PMI Scans

Edward de Bono, the guru of "thinking", devised a technique for quickly exploring a topic. He called it the PMI scan. PMI stands for “Plus, Minus, and Interesting.” (More information is available in Edward de Bono, de Bono's Thinking Course, Revised Edition, Facts On File Inc., 1994.)

To do a PMI scan, you start off with a topic expressed in a word, phrase, or sentence. Divide a sheet of paper into three sections. You can draw two horizontal lines dividing the sheet into thirds, or 2/5, 2/5, 1/5. I typically draw a horizontal line a quarter or a fifth of the way up from the bottom and a vertical line down the middle from the top to the horizontal line. Label the sections “Plus”, “Minus”, “Interesting” (or "P", "M", "I" or  "+", "-", and "I"). List phrases or sentences in the three sections. The plus section gets ideas of what is good about the topic, or reasons that support it, anything that we normally consider positive. The minus section gets ideas of what we consider negative. The Interesting section gets any questions we have, or anything about the topic that peeks our curiosity or interest.

Here’s what I got when I tried a PMI scan on “Being a Wit.”

Notice that these ideas are not necessarily true, or even comprehensible. They merely came to my mind at the time I filled out this table.

Nevertheless, they are useful. They say something, or at least they will when they have been translated into sentences. The sentences can be themselves rephrased as epigrams, or can inspire longer statements.

For example, let’s start with Wit as verbal self-defense. We might elaborate on it as follows:

Wittiness begins as self-defense.  The in-crowd may slight them.  The burly may fight them. The witty cannot win on those fields of play.

But we are not merely physical beings.  We are social and symbolic beings, and we can be attacked by ridicule.  The incipient wit learns that a human personality is like a tent: although propped up on and pegged to facts, it is a fabric covering an emptiness. Most people have few pegs for their tents, and many of those are pounded into sand. With one well-placed kick, you can watch them deflate.

The motto becomes: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words just keep on hurting.”  When someone slights you, you don’t have to take it:  Just give him the zinger.  Better than a chip on your shoulder is a quip on your tongue.

The initial idea inspired elaboration by rhyme, metaphor, and reformed clichés (clichés with substitutions of words or phrases).

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