Adding humour to conversation

EDITOR's note: In this column, Professor Yang Zhizhong of NanjingUniversity provided tips on improving your oral English for the CET-SET. This week he explains the importance of a sense of humour in conversation.

When we talk, it's always helpful to add a sense of humour to what we say. Humour makes our conversation colourful, delightful and impressive and helps us achieve the desired or even unexpected effect.

Here's a conversation I overheard at a US customs counter when entering the country:

Customs officer: Sir, are you carrying gifts worth more than US$2,000?

Visitor: Give me US$2,000, and you can have all my stuff here.

Customs officer: (Laughs) OK, go ahead.

According to US customs regulations of the time, anyone carrying gifts worth more than US$2,000 had to declare them and pay a duty. This visitor, instead of giving a strong "No," gave a humorous reply and the officer let him pass without examining his baggage.

Another conversation is between a Chinese host and his American guest from Minneapolis, as they were sitting down for dinner.:

Host: What would you like to drink? Wine or beer?

Guest: No, thanks. I don't drink anything alcoholic. Soft drinks will be fine for me.

Host: Soft drinks? You mean some kind of soda?

Guest: Yes.

Host: What kind of soda do you like best?

Guest: Could I have some Coke, or Sprite?

Host: What about Mini-soda? Don't you like that?

Guest: Mini-soda? (Smiles) Oh, of course. I like Mini-soda best, because that's where I'm from.

Now, everyone knows there's no such thing as Mini-soda. Even the American guest was puzzled for a second about what the host meant. But he soon realized that the host was joking. Mini-soda sounded like Minnesota, his home state. The host's sense of humour perhaps made him very happy and was a good opener for the dinner.

That makes me think of other possibilities. When we have guests from New York City, we might ask what kind of fruit they like best and whether they like apples, especially big apples. New York City is popularly referred to as the "Big Apple."

When we have friends from San Francisco, we might tell them we have been to San Francisco and we lost our hearts there. They'll be pleased because there's a song that's been popular for a long time, "I left my heart in San Francisco."

When we have friends from Ohio, we could give them a riddle to solve. We could ask them what is round at both ends but tall in the middle. It might take a while before they realize it's Ohio, their home state (o-high-o).

When we have friends from Iowa, we could ask them: "What would you say if you suddenly found you had won a US$1 million lottery?" If they were at a loss, we could give them a hint by saying, "Would you believe you had won? So you'll probably hesitate and say 'I?'... Would you be surprised? You'd perhaps utter 'Oh!'... Would you shout? Then you might shout 'Wow!'" They would see that you meant "I-O-WA" and be amused.

A sense of humour can also be used at the dinner table.

If a guest asked the name of a particular dish, as they often do, if there was no name, or if we don't know, we might say: "Its name? I'm afraid there isn't an English name for it yet. But what's in a name after all? Let's try it and see what it tastes like. Don't people often say, 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.'?" A guest would be more pleased to hear this than a factual answer. 'What's in a name?' is a famous Shakespearean line from Romeo and Juliet. And 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' is an old saying.

If we happen to have ordered more cake than we can possibly eat, and a guest would like to take the remainder away in a doggy-bag, we might say, "So, you can eat your cake and have it too," and they will see the joke. The original saying is "You can't have your cake and eat it too," meaning, you can't enjoy both things, when only one of the two is possible.

If pie is being served and we want our guests to help themselves, we might say, "Would you like to keep a finger in the pie?" from the expression that means "to be involved in something."

If a guest is on a diet and not eating much and we really want them to taste a bit of our Chinese food, we might say, encouragingly but jokingly, "We've heard Westerners say, 'Eat today, diet tomorrow.' or 'Eat in China, diet at home,' don't you think this is a good idea?"

Westerners like dessert at the end of a meal. But if we don't care for dessert, we might say, "You go ahead. I don't have a sweet tooth and think I'll desert you before dessert." This is a pun based on the fact that 'desert' and 'dessert' are homophones.

Coming up: More tips on improving CET speaking.