Why We Laugh Essays

Why We Laugh Essays Why We Laugh Essay Why We Laugh Essay Humour is a subject that has attracted the attention and interest of some of our greatest minds, from Aristotle and Kant to Freud. It has also fascinated and played an important part in the work of some of the greatest writers such as Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. However, curiously, after thousands of years spent trying to understand humour, there is still a great deal of controversy about what humour is or why something is funny. There are some interesting theories, though, on this matter. For Aristotle, comedy is based on â€Å"an imitation of men worse than the average,† of people who are â€Å"ridiculous†. Hobbes carried the same idea a bit further. He said, â€Å"the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. † There is another theory that is probably the most important and most widely accepted of the explanations of humour. This theory argues that all humour involves some kind of a difference between what one expects and what one gets. One of the more interesting and controversial theories of humour stems from the work of Freud. The psychoanalytic theory of humour argues that humour is essentially masked aggression which gives us gratifications we desperately crave. As Freud wrote in his classic book- Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious- â€Å"and here at last we can understand what it is that jokes achieve in the service of their purpose. They make possible the satisfaction of an instinct (whether lustful or hostile) in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way. † Freud also recounts a number of wonderful Jewish jokes in his book and alludes to the remarkable amount of self-criticism found in jokes which all Jews tell about themselves. â€Å"Incidentally,’ he wrote, â€Å"I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun of such a degree of its own character†. His use of the word â€Å"fun† is important. He did not regard Jewish jokes as masochistic (gratification gained from pain, deprivation). Just the opposite. It might be argued that since humour is an effective way to keeping in touch with reality, Jewish humour has been intimately connected with Jewish survival. Also, humour is not some kind of an idle and trivial matter but generally enables people to gain valuable insights into social and political matters. The fact of the matter is that this seemingly trivial, inconsequential, common thing we know as humour is very enigmatic and plays a vital role in our psychic lives and in society.

Antonymy - Definition and Examples in English

Antonymy s in English The semantic qualities or sense relations that exist between words (lexemes) with opposite meanings in certain contexts (i.e., antonyms). Plural antonymies. Contrast with synonymy. The term antonymy was introduced by C.J. Smith in his book Synonyms and Antonyms (1867). Pronunciation:Â  an-TON-eh-me Observations Antonymy is a key feature of everyday life. Should further evidence be required, try visiting a public lavatory without checking which is the gents and which is the ladies. On your way out, ignore the instructions which tell you whether to push or pull the door. And once outside, pay no attention to whether traffic lights are telling you to stop or go. At best, you will end up looking very foolish; at worst, you will end up dead. Antonymy holds a place in society which other sense relations simply do not occupy. Whether or not there exists a general human tendency to categorize experience in terms of dichotomous contrast ([John] Lyons 1977: 277) is not easily gauged, but, either way, our exposure to antonymy is immeasurable: we memorise opposites in childhood, encounter them throughout our daily lives, and possibly even use antonymy as a cognitive device to organise human experience. (Steven Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based Perspective. Routledge, 2002) Antonymy and Synonymy For the better-known European languages at least, there are a number of dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms available, which are frequently used by writers and students to extend their vocabulary and achieve a greater variety of style. The fact that such special dictionaries are found useful in practice is an indication that words can be more or less satisfactorily grouped into sets of synonyms and antonyms. There are two points that should be stressed, however, in this connexion. First, synonymy and antonymy are semantic relations of a very different logical nature: oppositeness of meaning (love:hate, hot:cold, etc.) is not simply the extreme case of difference of meaning. Second, a number of distinctions have to be drawn within the traditional concept of antonymy: dictionaries of antonyms are only successful in practice to the degree that their users draw these distinctions (for the most part unreflectingly). (John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge Univers ity Press, 1968) Antonymy and Word Classes Oppositeness . . . has an important role in structuring the vocabulary of English. This is especially so in the adjective word class, where a good many words occur in antonymous pairs: e.g. long-short, wide-narrow, new-old, rough-smooth, light-dark, straight-crooked, deep-shallow, fast-slow. While antonymy is typically found among adjectives it is not restricted to this word class: bring-take (verbs), death-life (nouns), noisily-quietly (adverbs), above-below (prepositions), after-before (conjunctions or prepositions). . . . English can also derive antonyms by means of prefixes and suffixes. Negative prefixes such as dis-, un- or in- may derive an antonym from the positive root, e.g. dishonest, unsympathetic, infertile. Compare also: encourage-discourage but entangle-disentangle, increase-decrease, include-exclude. (Howard Jackson and Etienne ZÃ © Amvela, Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology. Continuum, 2000) Canonical Opposites [W]hile antonymy is variable (i.e., context dependent), particular antonym pairs are often canonical in that they are known without reference to context. . . . For example, the color senses of black and white are opposed and so are their racial senses and their good/evil senses as in white magic and black magic. Canonicity of antonym relations also plays a role in context-specific antonymy. As Lehrer (2002) notes, if a frequent or basic sense of a word is in a semantic relation with another word, that relation can be extended to other senses of the word. For example, the basic temperature sense of hot contrasts with cold. While cold does not usually mean legally acquired, it can have that meaning when contrasted (with enough context) with hot in its stolen sense, as in (9). He traded in his hot car for a cold one. (Lehrer 2002) For readers to understand the intended sense of cold in (9), they must know that cold is the usual antonym of hot. Next they must deduce that if cold is the antonym of hot, then no matter what hot is used to mean in this context, cold means the opposite thing. The stability of some such antonym pairs across senses and contexts is evidence that those antonymic pairings are canonical. (M. Lynne Murphy, Semantic Relations and the Lexicon. Cambridge University Press, 2003) Antonymy and Word-Association Testing If a stimulus has a common opposite (an antonym), it will always elicit that opposite more often than anything else. These responses are the most frequent found anywhere in word association. (H.H. Clark, Word Associations and Linguistic Theory. New Horizons in Linguistics, ed. by J. Lyons. Penguin, 1970) See Also AntithesisVocabulary Builder #1: AntonymsWriters on Writing: Ten Tips for Finding the Right Words

Corporate Restructuring Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Corporate Restructuring - Case Study Example Organizations need to be more efficient and effective to ward off the challenges of deregulation and hence increased competition. As a result of increased market pressures, it is unavoidable that organizations analyze and redesign all aspects of their business to remain competitive. Companies around the world are awaking to new realities of an intensively competitive domain and have been undertaking extensive restructuring both at the operational and at the strategic levels. Organizations around the world need to make more decisive choices and take the challenges to leap frog to the next phase of growth. Business portfolios need to be restructured and realigned to assimilate the effects of globalization and deregulation. Companies all over the world are exploring various restructuring methodologies such as Cost cuttings, better customer relationship management, Resource Planning, mergers, takeovers and buy-outs to pursue focused growth. Citicorp: Citicorp was the descendant of City Bank of New York which was founded On June 16, 1812, with $2 million of capital, later, in 1968 renamed as First National City Bank. Large corporate banking was the core business of Citicorp and was one of the largest banks in the United States at the time of its merger with Travelers Group. Traveler Traveler Group: Insurance titan Travelers was founded in 1864 in Hartford, Connecticut. In the 1990s, Travelers went through a sequence of mergers and acquisitions, First with Primerica in 1993 and then Aetna's property and casualty business in 1996. Traveler was the first company in America to insure against accidents and to introduce automobile insurance policy. Making of the Giant - Acquisition In October 1996, Citigroup, Inc. was formed after a $70 billion Merger between Citicorp and the Travelers Group. The Travelers Insurance acquisition added property and casualty, and life and annuities underwriting capabilities to the group. It also brought along the Travelers red umbrella logo, which they applied to all the businesses within the group. One notable exception is Citibank, whose logo is Citibank with a red arc over the't'. The Citicorp-Travelers merger has represented a new era of inorganic growth. Motives behind Merger The merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group took place in 1998 against the prevailing US laws such as Glass-Steagall Act which prohibited the merger of a bank with an insurance underwriter. In year 1999, before the trial period provided by Glass-Steagall Act could end, new law, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which invalidated previous law was framed, this validated the merger. The main official motive behind this merger was expanding their product mix, customer base and ", achieve cost savings and synergies" and "to leave a bigger footprint". Restructuring after Merger Weill, then CEO of Traveler Group, proposed a structure of co-CEO's, in order to convince Citicorp to merge, consisting himself and John Reed, CEO of Citicorp. This strategy was believed unworkable by many business research analysts. Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was brought in as a moderator between Reed and Weill . But, conflicts within the company eventually forced Reed to come out of the conglomerate. Later three co-CEO's were inducted

Health Care Access Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Health Care Access - Research Paper Example And the people can simply chide him eventually in order to change his mind. Facts should clarify the right decision that should be made. Because the fear and argument generated by the good governor was about heavy indebtedness and loss of sovereignty, this paper endeavoured to check on the validity behind his reasoning against supporting the Obama Health Care plan to improve Medicaid and to insure the public with health care insurance. Random sampling of empirical data was done to find out what is meant by the possibility of losing sovereignty. Findings reveal that the total debts of USA are below the average in terms of percentage growth of total debts of the world since 2001. Compared to nine (9) out of eleven (11) countries included in the random sample, it shows that annual increases in US debts are normal. Details are shown in Table 1. The total debt statistics of ten other countries – UK, France, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, India, Russia, Germany, and Saudi Arabia – were chosen at random for comparison with the USA’s debts. (Source: USA Department of Health & Human Services 2012. Fiscal Year 2013 Budget in Brief: Stengthening Health and Opportunity for All Americans. Viewed October 8, 2012 @ http://www.hhs.gov/budget/budget-brief-fy2013.pdf ) USA ave. = (31.7 less 11.7 ) / 10 years = $ 2 K / year or less than 10% average increase of debts per year. The average increase or decrease is computed by $ 2K divided by the average of ($ 31.7 + 11.7) / 2, or $ 2 K / 21.7 = 9.22 % average increase in debts per year .from 2001 to 2011. This means that USA has been controlling its debt increases per year compared to the average growth of debts of the whole world. UK ave. = (31.5 less 9.6 ) / 10 years = $ 2.19 K / year or more than 10% average increase of debts per year. The average increase or decrease is computed by $ 2.19 K divided by the average of

seminar in helping :: essays research papers

My perception to the social work filed is basically the problems that exist in our nation which need to be recognized more clearly than it is. A number of prominent individuals have been attacked or killed by people with a psychosis or other mental disorders. Violence and aggression displayed by the mentally ill is usually directed against partners or family members, rather than others. There is little evidence of an increasing number of violent acts made by patients with psychosis, but books suggests that patients with major mental disorders have an increased risk for committing such acts compared with the general population Fed by highly selected information in the mass media about their very rare contribution to one type of tragedy, homicide, the public, it has been said that unless people with a mental disorder are once more segregated, â€Å"the streets will not be safe." Society that admits to uphold values such as the purity of life, equality, peace and non-violence can at the same time endorse capital punishment as a method of justice. Capital punishment is a barbaric practice that makes up a form of social injustice, especially since it does not even fulfill its alleged purpose of defending the interests of society. Executions have become rare among industrialized democracies. While a few countries do retain capital statues for dealing with extraordinary crimes such as treason, only Japan, parts of the former Soviet Union, and the United States still carry out death sentences for "ordinary" crimes of violence. Interestingly, even among those countries that still impose the death penalty, it appears that the United States stands in severe contrast to the international trend with capital punishment flourishing, accompanied by a corresponding wave of public support. The basic concerns of social welfare - poverty, disability and disease, the dependent young and elderly - are as old as civilized society itself. The means by which these concerns are addressed were once limited only by the laws of survival. Sharing another person's burden means weakening one's own standing in the struggle of daily existence. However, as societies evolved, the dependence between affiliates increased, so, as individuals became vulnerable, the society as a whole was affected, and systematic responses to disrupting factors were introduced. There have been recent studies that revealed the significance of parenting in the cross-generational transmission of aggressive or problem behavior up to three continuous generations. Stable evidence has long recognized and documented the negative effects of aggressive or harsh and inconsistent parenting and identified the need for interventions that would encourage better parenting skills.

Theme of Revenge in Hamlet

In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is so prominent that it could be considered its own character. The vengeance in Hamlet is essential to the development of Laertes, son of Polonius, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, and Fortinbras, prince of Norway. Revenge is an unnecessary evil causing humans to act blindly through anger rather than through reason. Referring as far back as Hammurabi’s idea of â€Å"An eye for an eye,† revenge is merely a chain of wrongdoings stimulated each time by a reciprocated act of evil.Revenge is set to conquer anyone who comes to seek it. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet while there is the theme of revenge, that theme is divided into two separate entities. There is Laertes’ active seeking of vengeance and â€Å"Hamlet’s inner struggle to take action. † (Shmoop 1) Laertes is extremely quick to take action to avenge the murder and suicide of his only remaining family. Returning home from an adventure for his own e ducational purposes, Laertes learns of his father murder by a sword through a tapestry.Upon arrival, Laertes finds his delusional sister, Ophelia, too involved in her songs of â€Å"Hey nonny, nonny† to really understand anything happening at that moment. Ophelia drove herself to an actual insanity from death of her father, or perhaps the rejection of Hamlet. Hours later, Ophelia is found in a pond after she committed suicide. Laertes wishes to seek revenge on Hamlet for his direct and indirect cause of his family’s deaths. Claudius is now also presented with his chance for his own revenge against his nephew, or his son in accordance with his incestual marriage.However, Claudius is only seeking â€Å"revenge† for fear of being found out, and hides his cowardice by helping Laertes kill Hamlet. Hamlet is a completely different example from Laertes. Through his father’s ghost, Hamlet is given the task of avenging his father in his untimely death. â€Å"Reve nge his foul and most unnatural murder. † (Act I, Scene iv, Shakespeare) Hamlet was given multiple opportunities to take the life of his uncle, but failed to do so. Not even sure of himself or of the request the father of his ghost, that he may or may not have seen, demanded. To be certain of Claudius’s guilt, Hamlet decides to re-enact the murder of his father with the production of The Murder of Gonzago (known also as the play within the play or The Mousetrap). † (Shakespeare-online 2) â€Å"The play’s the king Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. † (Act II, Scene ii, Shakespeare) However, even when he is completely sure Claudius is guilty of killing his own brother, he still finds trouble acting. Hamlet finds Claudius after the play to exact his revenge, but finds Claudius praying.With his sword at the ready, he starts to talk to himself about how he cannot kill his uncle while his father is â€Å"Doom'd for a certain term to wal k the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. † (Act I, Scene iv, Shakespeare) Hamlet actually manages to convince himself to not act now, and that another opportunity will present itself. If Hamlet had only taken the time he used to talk to himself to quietly listen he would have notice Claudius’ inability to utter a prayer, leaving the perfect opportunity untaken.What does separate Hamlet from others around him is his reason for his revenge. Hamlet achieves his revenge in the final scene of the final life. â€Å"In large part his course to the fifth act is the result of his moral sensitivity, his unflinching discernment of evil and his determination that it shall not thrive. † (Prosser 1) His â€Å"hatred of corruption† and his â€Å"vision of what man should be† fueled him through all his pretenses into his final moments.While â€Å"Hamlet is definitely a great e xample of a typical revenge tragedy† (NovelGuide 4) he is unique in the way he hesitates in his path to destroy what is evil and to preserve whatever little good is left. Hardly mentioned at all, there was another character in Hamlet that received his revenge at the end of the play. Fortinbras, prince of Norway set off to regain the lands of Denmark, which were lost to King Hamlet Senior years ago. Fortinbras was returning to win back his lands, which he did, and he did so very peacefully.Fortinbras regained the lands that were rightly his, as there were no more heirs to the Danish throne. Horatio almost foreshadows the movements of Fortinbras, but no further of him is mentioned until the end of the play. â€Å"Now, sir, young Fortinbras, Of unimproved mettle hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, For food and diet, to some enterprise That hath a stomach in't; which is no other— As it doth well appear unto our state—But to recover of us, by strong hand And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands So by his father lost. (Act I, Scene I, Shakespeare) Fortinbras choice for revenge is the only one that ended up with no more murder involved. All three characters, Laertes, Hamlet, and Fortinbras, were so obsessed with avenging their father’s death, nobody survived to be able to gloat about his victory, except for Fortinbras. Revenge is characterized by a chain of bad choices with another individual feeling he is obligated to make the situation fair once more. Hamlet by William Shakespeare is powerful play that exemplifies the cruelty of revenge and how much anger and how little reason are truly involved.There is never a real need for revenge, as more of it will eventually lead to the demise of everyone involved. Thousands of years before Shakespeare wrote his plays, Hammurabi created the first law book, almost foreshadowing the dangers of revenge. â€Å"An eye for an eye will lea ve the whole world blind†, while murder for murder will only lead to more murder. Works Cited â€Å"Elizabethan Revenge in Hamlet. † Novel Guides. Web. 1 Jan 2013. ;http://www. novelguide. com/ReportEssay/literature/shakespeare/elizabethan-revenge-hamlet;.Prosser, Eleanor. â€Å"Hamlet and Revenge. † HowlandPak. HowlandPak, Web. 1 Jan 2013. ;http://howlandpowpak. neomin. org/powpak/cgi-bin/custom_page_display. pl? id=thomas. williams;cp=28;. Mabillard, Amanda. â€Å"Revenge in Hamlet. † Shakespeare Online, 12 2011. Web. 1 Jan 2013. ;http://shakespeare-online. com/playanalysis/revengetragedy. html;. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. London, England: 1603. Print. â€Å"Shmoop. † Hamlet. Shmoop University, Inc. Web. 1 Jan 2013. ;http://www. shmoop. com/hamlet/;.

Risk and Return Analyis and Portfolio Management of Indian...

PSG INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT FINANCIAL SYSTEMS A PROJECT REPORT On RISK AND RETURN ANALYSIS PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT Of INDIAN AUTOMOBILE COMPANIES Submitted by, G.Abirami(9UTB02) M.Kamalam(9UTB13) N.Nirupa(9UTB18) P.Srilakshmi(9UTB32) INDEX CONTENTS PAGE NO. Acknowledgement Statement of Problem Introduction: Industry overview Company profiles Objectives Scope Limitations Literature Review Research Methodology Analysis Interpretation Findings Suggestions Conclusion Bibliography (i) (ii) 1 1 3 13 13 14 18 20 33 36 37 38 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all we thank the Almighty for having bestowed upon us the sufficient potential with which we are able to complete whatever work we undertake†¦show more content†¦A well developed transportation system plays a key role in the development of an economy, and India is no exception to it. With the growth of transportation system the Automotive Industry of India is also growing at rapid speed, occupying an important place on the canvas of Indian economy. Today Indian automotive industry is fully capable of producing various kinds of vehicles and can be divided into 03 broad categories : Cars, two-wheelers and heavy vehicles. Snippets: The first automobile in India rolled in 1897 in Bombay. India is being recognized as potential emerging auto market. Foreign players are adding to their investments in Indian auto industry. Within two-wheelers, motorcycles contribute 80% of the segment size. Unlike the USA, the Indian passenger vehicle market is dominated by cars (79%). Tata Motors dominates over 60% of the Indian commercial vehicle market. 2/3rd of auto component production is consumed directly by OEMs. India is the largest three-wheeler market in the world. India is the largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the world. India is the second largest tractor manufacturer in the world. India is the fifth largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in the world. The number one global motorcycle manufacturer is in India. India is the fourth largest car market in Asia - recently