Rolling On – The Best Handful of Tips 68 – Telling JOKES

 Telling  JOKES :

A good joke can help get your message across and keep your audience interested and amused. Humour depends on life experiences and these can vary greatly between countries and different social groups within a country.

          You should enjoy the story or joke yourself if you want to tell it well.

          The essence of humour is that it should  contain an element of surprise.

          Don’t rush a joke. Make sure all can hear your story, loud and clear. Pause before you deliver your punch line.

Five of the best tips on how to prepare and tell a  joke

* Select your jokes carefully

          Consider  the background and experience of the audience. Take care not to offend!

          Sexist and off-colour jokes could upset some people so select jokes that are suitable for the audience and relevant to the occasion. Male jokes and female jokes differ and keep away from political and religious jokes.

          Keep your jokes short and don’t tell too many.

          Before you tell your jokes in a foreign country test them out first on local assistants to see if they will be understood and appreciated. Some jokes may offend, take care!

          In some countries you can tell jokes against yourself but in Asian countries you may ‘lose face’.

* Collect good stories and jokes

          When you hear a suitable joke or story save it. Jot it down in a note book or make a digital note for future reference.  It will be readily available for an appropriate occasion. 

* Make it your story

          Rewrite it. Put yourself into the story.

Make it topical, use local names and places. Revise it. Edit it. Rehearse it.

          Act it out using facial expressions and gestures in front of a mirror. This is important!

* Practise telling it again and again

          Keep telling it until you get a good laugh every time. If there is a punch-line, pause, then make sure you deliver it loud and clear and don’t laugh at your own joke.  

* Build your own joke library

          File these jokes so you can use them with relevant topical references at the next appropriate occasion. A little effort in collecting and filing jokes can be a sound investment.

          Collect, revise, test, rehearse and practise are the golden rules for good story tellers.         

–Geoffrey Moss

“People enjoy a little nonsense now and then.”

Source: “Persuasive Ways. ‘Tricks of the trade’ to get your ideas across”. First published by  Moss Associates Ltd., New Zealand and in Chinese by the Shanghai People’s Publishing House, the Singapore Institute of Management, Kogan Page Ltd, U.K and in Hungarian by Bagolyvar Konyvkiado.  Also published as the “Secrets of Persuasion” by Cengage Learning Asia and as an e-book and sold by Amazon.com.

 

 

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