Subject: [Fwd: Fw: At last a diagnosis!]
From: Van Snyder
Date: Thu, August 23, 2018 3:05 pm
To:
Some of you had the misfortune of having classes with me from elementary thru college.
As you recall I was the class clown and you suffered my presence.
Why ???, teachers, counselors, principals, etc., were always asking.
At last a diagnosis! This explains why I couldn't keep my mouth shut in class or at other totally inappropriate places - funerals, movies, back of police cars, etc. Or continually sending out stupid emails It's not my fault. So I don't have to apologize any more (and Korea didn't help at all).
Stu [Stu was a crew member on the USS Pueblo. His was the initiative for the
"American Christmas Good Luck Sign." I.e., giving the finger to the DPRK photographer.
He spent a month in solitary for it. He said it was worth every second.]
Friend Who Can't Stop Making Puns and telling jokes?
Turns Out They Might Have Brain Damage
By Natasha Noman | March 11, 2016
Everybody has that friend, family member or colleague. Any chance they gets,
they'll make a groan-worthy pun, which is invariably so bad it produces laughter.
Well, according to some neurologists, they might have brain damage.
It's an affliction known as "Witzelsucht" — a German word,
with a rather straightforward etymology: "Witz" translates to "wisecrack,"
while "sucht" means "yearning."
And it leaves many sufferers finding their jokes hilarious, while others not so much.
The neurological theory behind this pathological disorder is as follows:
The frontal lobes become damaged — from a stroke or brain trauma, for example.
And this region of the brain is crucial for processing jokes. Frontal lobes are responsible
for analysis and reasoning, they are "the 'control panel' of our personality and our ability
to communicate," according to Healthline.
Jokes, which very often surprise us with punchlines that upend our expectations, require the
frontal lobe to understand. "The 'ha ha' moment is not very far from the 'aha' moment,"
Professor Jason Warren at the University College London's Dementia Research Centre told BBC.
However, the type of brain damage theoretically associated with Witzelsucht simultaneously
"disinhibits" the way the frontal lobes and pleasure centers communicate, the BBC's David Robson
explained: "So while others' jokes may leave them cold, their own thoughts and feelings — stemming
from any random connection or association — may end up triggering the dopamine kick as they
collapse in fits of giggles."
Witzelsucht can produce a host of other symptoms, including hypersexuality, both in
terms of joke choice and sex drive. Warren believes joke-based testing in the future could
potentially prove fruitful in determining brain damage or the nature of it. And a perceived
change in humor by those close to the bad pun-makers might be the earliest indication
that they have a case of Witzelsucht. However, if someone is just inherently a habitual
and terrible joke maker, it doesn't look like there's much to be done about it.
Other than maybe being pun-itive.
By Natasha Noman Staff Writer Email
