In our society, we agree about certain things--food is good, crime is bad, it's hard to watch three hours of children's ballet without taking no-doze.
One thing that we haven't decided on is the difference between hilarious, humorous, funny, laugh riot etc.
When I look at ads in the paper for movies, or the writer comments on the back of a book, I often find words like the above. But when I read the book or see the movie, I usually don't find that any of them apply. The book or movie might be fun, but it's definitely not a laugh riot.
Yahoo will often tell me about a hilarious cat video that I just have to watch. Now, watching a cat massage another cat or get stuck in a tiny ball is definitely cute, and I might chuckle and find it amusing, but I probably would not find it hilarious. After all, how many times have we not, as a population, gotten stuck in a tiny ball?
I don't blame this on anyone. As I mentioned, I think the problem really is that we as a society haven't nailed down what each of these words truly means.
So perhaps I should take one giant step forward for all of mankind (can you tell I wanted to be an astronaut?) and give you my definitions in terms of books. So here they are--
Humorous or fun Books
These, to me are entertaining, but I probably wouldn’t laugh when I read them. There's nothing wrong with these kinds of books. They're just not going to be hilarious or funny.
Funny Books
I laugh throughout the book, either because of the characters or the situations.
Hilarious Books
These are books that are ten times funnier than the funny ones. As you can probably guess, there’s not too many of these around.
In my opinion it's a good idea to nail down what type of book you're writing before you start. This way if you don’t come up to that standard, you can call yourself on it. I will often say to myself, "Steve, this isn't hilarious, it's merely amusing." And to that, I usually answer, "Get lost."
Have fun every day!
Steve
One thing that we haven't decided on is the difference between hilarious, humorous, funny, laugh riot etc.
When I look at ads in the paper for movies, or the writer comments on the back of a book, I often find words like the above. But when I read the book or see the movie, I usually don't find that any of them apply. The book or movie might be fun, but it's definitely not a laugh riot.
Yahoo will often tell me about a hilarious cat video that I just have to watch. Now, watching a cat massage another cat or get stuck in a tiny ball is definitely cute, and I might chuckle and find it amusing, but I probably would not find it hilarious. After all, how many times have we not, as a population, gotten stuck in a tiny ball?
I don't blame this on anyone. As I mentioned, I think the problem really is that we as a society haven't nailed down what each of these words truly means.
So perhaps I should take one giant step forward for all of mankind (can you tell I wanted to be an astronaut?) and give you my definitions in terms of books. So here they are--
Humorous or fun Books
These, to me are entertaining, but I probably wouldn’t laugh when I read them. There's nothing wrong with these kinds of books. They're just not going to be hilarious or funny.
Funny Books
I laugh throughout the book, either because of the characters or the situations.
Hilarious Books
These are books that are ten times funnier than the funny ones. As you can probably guess, there’s not too many of these around.
In my opinion it's a good idea to nail down what type of book you're writing before you start. This way if you don’t come up to that standard, you can call yourself on it. I will often say to myself, "Steve, this isn't hilarious, it's merely amusing." And to that, I usually answer, "Get lost."
Have fun every day!
Steve