English language

How to pronounce aphorist in English?

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all right james geary welcome to the
show
thank you for having me
she's got a new book out wits end
what whit is how it works and why we
need it so what got you thinking
about wit and deciding there needs to we
need to have an entire book dedicated to
wit was it you had an experience with an
incredibly woody person or has have you
been trying to capture what wood is for
like your entire life
well i've i've always been interested in
language and wordplay since since i was
really
a little kid
there are not
many or any books in my house when i was
growing up but we did my family
subscribed to two magazines
one was time magazine and the other was
reader's digest and
i ended up becoming a journalist and
actually working for time magazine
eventually
and reader's digest that was the place
where i first discovered quotable quotes
that page in the in the magazine and
every issue where you have a collection
of
sayings from various celebrities and
famous people
and
i remember reading
when i was about eight years old the
following quotable quote the difference
between a rut and a grave
is the depth
and
that's an aphorism i didn't know about
aphorisms when i was eight but there was
something about that that saying in
particular and quotable quotes in
general that really fascinated me and i
just became
over the years obsessed with that kind
of use of language very concise
funny
paradoxical philosophical
and i ended up going on to write a
couple books about aphorisms and and
from there i was led to metaphor because
i was trying to figure out how aphorisms
work aphorisms are really just short
witty philosophical sayings
working mostly through metaphor like the
one about the rut and the grave those
are just metaphors
and then i ultimately
alighted on wit
as the kind of the the fundamental
operating system in our brains that
allows us to have these kind of
witty insights and philosophical musings
and to be able to express them not just
in language but in all kinds of forms
and one of the things that the book
explores
is verbal it can be intellectual it can
be visual
and
i think that's
that's the sort of the origin story for
my for my fascination with with wit
were you afraid that by putting wit
under the microscope like you would kill
it in the process like you know people
who analyze jokes like you know scholars
who analyze jokes like they make it make
a joke unfunny by me by and figuring out
what makes a joke funny
yeah not only was i afraid of that brett
but i actually did that i actually
the the first version of the book the
first my first first chapters that i
wrote were truly horrific
and just uninteresting not funny at all
and completely uninspiring
and i had a little crisis
actually not a little crisis a big
crisis early on when i was trying to
actually write the book
where i thought it would not be possible
to write the kind of book i wanted to
write because like you say i didn't want
to write a book that completely
destroyed the liveliness and the fun and
the joy and the surprise of wit by
analyzing it to death
and
i discovered that by trying to write it
in a
kind of conventional straightforward
non-fiction
type treatment that that's unfortunately
exactly the effect i was having but at
the time our son our eldest son was in
drama school and he mentioned to me one
day that his class was they were
watching going to watch the film some
films of buster keaton a fantastic
silent film star from the 1920s
and as an example of wit
and i said oh wow that's you know and
i'm a huge buster keaton fan and my son
you know our kids grew up watching
buster keaton films so i said well you
know you should tell your your teacher
that i'm writing a book about wit or i'm
so far unsuccessfully writing a book
about wit and i'll be happy to come down
and give a talk about that subject and
to my surprise she agreed and invited me
down
and i did this talk to my son's class
and as part of the class we did some
improv exercises that that actors do
and during that afternoon that that was
happening i thought ah this is the way
here i am standing in front of a group
of aspiring actors
who specialize in dialogue and you know
creating scenes
and i thought well this is the way i
need to write the book the the chapter
on witty banter and verbal wit which i
was struggling with at the time i need
to write it like a play and show you
know there's a classic journalistic
dictum show don't tell i can show how it
works how verbal fireworks witty
fireworks work rather than trying to
explain it to people and that's how i
kind of lighted on the idea to write
each chapter in a different style so the
chapter on verbal wit well actually
there's a couple one is written in the
form of a play another is written in the
form of a rap song lyrics to a rap
hip-hop song there's a chapter on
the neuroscience of wit how wit works in
the brain and that's written like a
scientific paper there's a chapter
written in iambic pentameter the heroic
couplets of alexander pope an english
poet from the 18th century who's a great
great wit and wrote a lot about wit
there's a poem about the spirituality
the spiritual side of wit which is
written like a sermon like you would
hear in church on a sunday
and once i
realized that was the mechanism through
which i could tell this story by writing
in these different styles and taking on
these different voices then it became
paradoxically really easy to write and i
felt like and i hope i hope that's also
the experience of readers that i bring
wit to life on the page rather than kill
it through over analysis or or over
explanation no you're successful this
was a fun read okay you said it changes
up throughout the book um so we've been
talking about wit
and i think people most people like they
know it when they see it they know when
they see a witty person but i think if
you pressed most people to say what what
is wit what makes a woody remark witty
they'd probably be like um
well
they wouldn't be able to they'd just be
hemmington hine yeah um it's like what
what is wit are there elements that are
necessary for a phrase or a word or
whatever to be witty
yeah i think there are and i think um
i i think the first uh
i think we tend to think when we think
of wit we tend to think of verbal wit
and someone being funny and
while being funny is certainly an aspect
of wit it's not the defining
characteristic of wit you can be witty
and not funny at all
so my definition the one that i came to
as i researched the book is wit is the
ability to think say or do the right
thing at the right time in the right
place
and if you think about the way we use
the word wit in everyday conversation we
say we're living by our wits or we've
come to our wit's end
or we need to keep our wits about us or
someone is dimwitted or quick-witted or
a nitwit
um these are all uh you know very
familiar phrases the way we use wit in
in just normal conversation and none of
them have anything to do with being
funny um what they what they all share
those expressions is is wit as a kind of
improvisational intelligence and that's
why my definition doesn't specifically
mention being funny because you can be
like i said you can be witty without
without being funny and someone who who
for example is living by their wits
they're not being funny they're being
resourceful they're being ingenious
they're solving problems when they have
few resources and i think that's the
essence of wit
and part of that um essence involves and
i think this this is where it intersects
with verbal wit it it involves surprise
or novelty because a witty saying we we
recognize and we laugh at a witty saying
because it surprises us in some way it's
unexpected or it gives some kind of
twist to to
what what might seem familiar on the
surface but by
just giving it a little um twist it
brings a new aspect of that thing to
light so i think the the intersection
between and and in fact wit the the
original the way the word was originally
used you know hundreds of years ago in
english was more to indicate someone's
intelligence or acumen rather than their
sense of humor and if you look at the
etymology of the word it comes from wit
comes from a sanskrit verb which is vid
which means to see
and that's where the word video comes
from for example the verb vid and to see
is also a metaphor for to know or to
understand you know like i see what you
mean means i understand what you know
what you're saying
and whit uh shares that same
etymological root the sanskrit verb vid
with the word wisdom so wit and wisdom
actually can be traced back to the same
word and basically their original
meanings are the same i have a book here
on my desk women's wit and wisdom it's
collection of aphorisms by female
writers
and the title is actually redundant it
might as well be you know women's wit
and wit or women's wisdom and wisdom
because wit and wisdom really
mean identical things
and so i think that's what the the real
essence of wit is it's a kind of
improvisational intelligence
um spontaneous kind of ability to react
to things in the moment to think on your
feet
and that kind of sheds some kind of
light or provides some kind of insight
on a common
common experience or a common challenge
or a common problem
oh i want to dig deeper into the the
etymology and sort of the concept of
whit because okay you mentioned
resourcefulness sort of improvisation
you had a chapter talking about how this
idea
even goes back to the ancient greeks
with odysseus like odysseus he kind of
represented this idea of metis
what is medicine is that just
resourcefulness is that what is that is
that what that means
yeah medici is a kind of
i guess the the best way to translate it
would be a shrewdness or a kind of
mental agility
uh involving like being able to
improvise and so odysseus
you know the famous example is the the
trojan horse you know he's trying to
attack attack troy but the city is so
well defended they would never be able
to to break through
so he comes up with the plan of you know
hiding a bunch of soldiers in this huge
wooden horse that they're allegedly
offering as a peace a peace offering and
you know of course the the trojans take
it in and at night all the soldiers jump
out and slaughter everyone but the whole
the odyssey you know the whole uh epic
greek epic odyssey is about odysseus
getting into all kinds of
scrapes and difficult situations partly
through his own you know his own kind of
egoism and stubbornness but he always
manages to kind of find a way out and
he's it's so odysseus is a great example
of someone who's lives by by his wits
that's that's what that whole epic is is
about
him getting out of these really
dangerous uncomfortable situations that
he's he's gotten himself into so i think
metis is
in in greek mythology is and greek
literature is that kind of
improvisational intelligence that allows
you to
to escape tricky situations and solve
difficult problems and there's a
wonderful
homer uses a wonderful word to describe
odysseus at the very beginning
of the odyssey and the english
translation is is a man of many turns
and i think that's just a beautiful way
to think about wit um because it is it
does have that idea of resourcefulness
and being you know versatile in in the
face of adversity
and also like we were talking about a
minute ago just being able to turn
something you know we say
we say you know he has a nice turn of
phrase or you can turn the tables on
someone or turn things around
and being a person of many turns i think
is probably it's a really elegant and
poetic definition of a fundamental
personal characteristic of wit
well one story you also talk about that
simplifies odysseus exemplifying wit
is verbally so not only did he do witty
things but he he said witty things like
the one that's really famous is when
he's in the cave with a cyclop
polyphemus
and polyphemus asked him what's your
name and odysseus says no one
right and he's sort of is like a pun i
forget isn't there there is like a pun
if you if you know the greek that is a
pun correct yes so the pun there is
actually on the word metis so there's
different ways in ancient greek and i'm
by no means an ancient greek scholar
but the way that
you can say i am no one in a couple of
different ways
one way is is involves the word medici
it's it's a different word from the
the one we've just been discussing but
it sounds exactly the same when it's
said aloud which is basically what a pun
is it's a it's two different words that
sound the same and have two different
meanings and so when in that scene where
he's trying to escape the the cyclops
he's actually blinded the cyclops he's
gotten them drunk
so you know the cyclops is kind of
passed out on the sofa and odysseus
blinds him
and so that he and his soldiers can
escape from the cave that they're
trapped in
and when when he does that the cyclops
screams you know he says who is who's
done this to me and odysseus says
no one i am no one
but when he says no one it means no one
i am nobody but it also means i am wit
because the word is medici so
odysseus is saying two things at the
same time he's saying i am no one and i
am wit
and that is another example of that kind
of resourcefulness in this case it's a
kind of cruel resourcefulness but you
know his life was at stake in that of
his his soldiers um
but you know when he says i am wit he's
saying i am this
i am this person of many turns
and i've just turned turned the tables
on you cyclops by blinding you so that
uh we could all escape so i think that's
a really fun way for homer to
communicate this idea of medicine in in
action through
through uh odysseus's story yeah and so
for the the story goes on when the
cyclops starts yelling out oh no one is
hurting me and all the other cyclops are
like then why are you yelling all right
that was
exactly what's the problem
yeah this is very very clever he's got
him coming and going there odysseus
so let's talk about different forms of
wit and so we can explore these ideas of
improvisation you start off talking
about puns being a form of wit but for a
lot of folks like puns are like the
lowest like eye-rolling form of humor
but you think that's an unfair
characterization yes why do you think
that is
um yeah because i first of all i i've
never understood why puns are so reviled
you know that um
and of course when you make a pun what's
the first thing you say oh sorry no pun
intended and i don't think puns are
anything that we should apologize for it
because
i do think they are
in in many ways they're they're the most
pedestrian as well as the most profound
example of wit
in daily life and they're pedestrian
because everybody
you know makes puns everybody gets puns
but they're profound because i think
they touch on the real essence of wit
and that is making these
novel surprising instantaneous
combinations between things or among
things that on the surface are not alike
and are not similar in any way
and so i think it's a and i think that
kind of wit the sort of recommendatory
aspect of wit is the essence of human
creativity really because i think
creativity is
taking what you know and combining what
you know in ways that create the create
new things or create things that you
don't know
and so the pun that we just been
discussing on metis i think is a great
example of that
odysseus is he's both he's doing so many
things in that pun he's confusing and
overcoming an an adversary but he's also
making a very profound statement about
what whit is and and how it works and
why we need it in fact
that's that's the subhead the subtitle
of my book and i think that that one pun
uh really sums it up and i think what's
also interesting about puns is that the
person who makes a pun
and the person who gets the pun or
receives the pun
are really performing exactly the same
kind of creative work they're making
exactly the same
creative connections
it's just that the person who makes the
pun is kind of making that connection in
one direction and the person who
receives the pun is making the
connection in the other direction
there's a great example i did a talk a
while back in in washington in dc
and as part of the talk that i do about
about my book i have a pun competition
towards the end of the the talk and i
ask for volunteers from from the
audience and we
we name a theme like plants or or
something like that or modes of
transportation or body parts
and
the volunteers have to make a pun on
that theme
right away or they sit down and then the
last person standing and the last person
punting wins a free copy of my book so
if the subject were body parts for
example you could say something like i
browse the web when i look for
information eyebrows upon on a body part
so
so as part of that
the pun competition i also ask the
audience to shout out themes that they
might want to have the volunteers pun on
and of course this was in dc so someone
shouted out the wall
and that no one could come up with a pun
on that right away but a woman in the
back of the
back of the room shouted out don't take
offense
and i think that's a great example of
how puns can be profound because
it's a pun offense and a fence but it's
also kind of making a political social
statement about the whole idea of the
wall and the purpose of the wall and
how the wall has become one of the the
many things that that people are have
become so polarized around so i think
that's why not all puns are of that high
level but i think that's all puns even
the worst puns
really speak to
this essential creative aspect of the
human mind to create
surprising novel and really fertile
creativity and intellectually fertile
combinations so when my kids start
making pun jokes i should encourage that
absolutely
and you should participate
right and it seems like that's like one
of the first forms of humor like that
they develop like they start seeing how
language can be
used in different ways and means
you say one word but it means different
things yeah and i think that's like i
remember
when our oldest child the the one who
went to drama school he was two and
you know he was just learning to talk
and
i remember i was
with him and he was standing on the
dresser i was probably just getting him
dressed or something like that he was
looking out the window and pointed up
into the sky to the sun
and he said big sky lamp
and that's a beautiful metaphor for the
sun
and that's the way kids learn so when
your kids are
are punting
they are in their mind connecting
something they don't know with something
that they do know and that's the way
we learn that's the way human beings
learn from childhood on up to adulthood
and that's also the the essence of
metaphor and so my son in my son here's
another pun my son in talking about the
sun was comparing it to a lamp which was
something that he knew and trying to
understand what the sun was by comparing
it to a lamp and that's where he came up
with big sky lamp
one chapter that i really enjoyed was
where you had these two guys talking
about wit but like as a fencing lesson
like fencing with swords
like what can fencing teach us about the
art and nature of wit
yeah the um if you think of some of the
the phrases that we use to describe wit
cutting wit a cutting remark you're
someone's like a witty person has a foil
which is someone who's not as witty who
they use for the you know to bounce
their jokes off of
there's also the the word in english
repost which is actually a french word
and it's taken from fencing and it means
your reply to an attack the same the
same is true for the word parry when
someone attacks you and you kind of
repel that attack that's called a parry
and all those words are used when we
talk about witch you know i parried his
criticism
well he insulted me but i had a really
great repost
and those are actual fencing terms and i
noticed that and then i just started
investigating fencing and actually as
part of my research for the for the book
i took fencing lessons
and what i realized is that fencing is
is a very
it's a sport that involves incredible
precision and an incred it's a very
highly choreographed sport and it
happens like so fast you can't even you
know like i would watch fencing
competition i wouldn't even wouldn't
even be able to see what they were
actually doing
and i think that's in so many ways
analogous to
the more combative forms of wit which is
you know like a
classic example would be groucho marx
you know there's a sort of
edge another kind of fencing term he has
a sharpness and an edge to his
his uh one-liners that i think is is
very very similar to fencing and when
you're
arguing with someone you're you're
pitting your wits against someone else
it's very much like fencing because a
lot of the the art of fencing is is in
footwork it's in kind of preparing the
ground before you strike
and i think that's true for wit as well
if you take the socratic method of
argument or teaching where you have two
people
going back and forth in a dialogue
trying to convince each other of a point
of view
that's very much like fencing just as
two fencers are kind of arranging their
footwork and dancing around trying to
get their opponent in a position that
makes them vulnerable to attack that's
what happens in in witty repartee and
witty banter and witty argument you're
trying to kind of say things and
position yourself verbally so that you
can land that strike with your
with your sword or with your sharp edged
words so i think
understanding fencing really helped me
understand
that that particular form of verbal wit
which is kind of more
combative and and more insulting than
than other kinds of verbal wit well a
more modern or recent iteration of that
combative wit is like the dozens you
talk about where it takes part in
predominantly african-american
communities where you know typically
it's men they'll get and have these
competitions where they they're sort of
like rap battles but like
rap battles is another example of wit on
display but the the dozens is where you
just do insults at each other back and
forth and whoever can do the best insult
wins yeah
and i think rap battles can you know
they they really do come from that uh
history of the dozens like in
researching the dozens is so fascinating
and there's
such great lines like when i remember um
the whole point of the dozens is you're
insulting you know your opponent and you
want to insult him or her in such an
expert way that they kind of concede and
and and
and quit and one of the lines was like
you know you're so dumb you think the
supreme court is where diana ross plays
tennis
i just think that that's such a
brilliant it's like really insulting but
it's it's done in such a funny way and
it's done in such an elegant way as as
well and i think that's again also
analogous to fencing you know fencing is
actually a like a really
violent sport but it's it's done in this
beautiful almost ballet-like
choreographed way
that the way that those moves are are
presented is just beautiful to to watch
and i think the same is true is true
in the dozens and and those and actually
the dozens
all around the world there are these
forms of verbal combat that people
indulge in you know just as kind of
entertainment it's it's not it doesn't
lead to violence or anything like that
um it's more just like a way to pass the
time but
the rap you know rap battles today are
very much coming from that uh tradition
of of the dozens
and one of the reasons that i
wrote one chapter as a as a rap song as
i think you know rap is such really
like the height of witty expression in
in popular culture and you know just
you know some of the the lyrics of rap
songs i'm thinking people like jay cole
or kendrick lamar
i think they're just such exquisite
use of language and making you know
social political critique through a very
elegant but at times really really
cutting use of of witty language and i
tried to emulate that in in the in the
chapter that i wrote in the style of a
rap song well another way music can be
cutting you talk about this too sort of
a forerunner to rap battles or the
dozens was in the during the jazz age
where piano players would have these
cutting
sessions where basically they would have
these improvisation competitions where
one guy would play a tune and then he
passed off the next guy and who could do
the best improvisation on the piano and
they pass it back and forth and
you wanted to see who could be the
wittiest piano player yeah and that's
that's like um
and that still exists you know if you go
to a jazz gig today
that still exists in the in the
tradition of trading solos you know the
you know the band starts playing
altogether then the sax takes the solo
and then this the pianist or the double
bass player or the drummer
and they each kind of
take a turn
and it's that comes back to you know
odysseus and you know the the person of
many turns what's happening in jazz
improvisation is that they're taking
that musical phrase and as you say you
know part of that improvisational
passages are
just trying to see how many different
ways they can turn that musical phrase
and make it something different and
build on what the previous player was
playing
and that's a great that that
aspect of improvisation when you're
taking something and building on it in
the moment spontaneously that's a key
aspect of of of wit and in the in the
chapter on the neuroscience of whit that
i mentioned earlier
they've done studies they've put jazz
musicians and rappers
in mri machines and and scanned their
brains
while they are improvising and compare
that to their brains while they're kind
of playing something from memory or
playing reciting pre-written lyrics
rather than
improvising them off the dome
and there's different areas of your
brain that are active when you're
improvising and creating things
spontaneously as opposed to when
you're
you know reciting something from memory
or reading something from from a page
and that area of the brain that's active
when
you're improvising and making things up
on the spot that's
a crucial area of the brain for wit
because that is the that is the area of
the brain that's active when
you're trying to solve a problem with
few resources or you're engaged in you
know the dozens and you need to have a
a a smart witty comeback to someone
so it's interesting to see how
all the kind of human activities human
create creative activities that have to
do with
spontaneously generating ideas they're
all involved in this in this one brain
network
so an aspect of wit is there has to be
another person to understand the witty
remark right if you if you say something
witty
and no one gets it like are you actually
being witty
that's a very relevant question for me
because i often say something that i
think is funny and nobody gets it you're
right i think you know we we say it's a
private joke you know you can have
private jokes and you can laugh to
yourself
laugh inwardly
but i do think wit needs witnesses and
in fact witness is actually uh from that
same sanskrit verb vid to see and it's
related to wit and wisdom
and
i think the
so you know it's like the famous
question if a tree falls in the forest
and no one hears it does it make a noise
and i think in the case of wit it
probably does not make a noise because
wit does require wit like a like we were
discussing about puns
you can make a pun but upon it doesn't
it doesn't come into its its fullness of
being unless someone deciphers it
somewhat unless someone gets it
and that requires another person and
what i think is so
interesting about wit is it it is a
collaboration between
two people
to
create
the wit or to to complete the wit and if
you think about jokes you know you've
got a joke and it's got different parts
and you've got the you know the setup
and you've got the punch line
but
the punch line is never explicitly
explained you know
if it is it's then it's it's a terrible
joke
and you know we say a person you get it
you get the punch line and i think
that's a well well-chosen verb because
it does require the
the hearer to kind of go out and meet
the teller of the joke halfway
and in many ways the like we're talking
about about puns
the person who hears a joke is doing
exactly the same creative work as the
person who's telling the joke and the
joke does not exist until it's completed
completed in the mind of the of the
listener when the you know the listener
goes out and gets it
and i think that's why what's so special
about wit is it does create this kind of
bond it creates this kind of intimacy
because
you are kind of
working with someone else's mind in that
moment to create the the wit that that
that happens and i think you see that
you know like
why does every almost every public
speaker begin a speech by telling a joke
and i think it's because a joke
a witty joke a witty remark some kind of
self-deprecating humor it creates that
kind of bond because you're you're
inviting uh your audience to
complete this journey with you
and that when when you complete that
journey it creates this kind of almost
uh in a positive sense it's like a
you're co-conspirators you're you're
working together to achieve this goal
which is wit
and i think that's
why it's essential that wit is a kind of
it's a collective experience it takes at
least two people for for something to be
witty
yeah i think you wrote at one point in
the book it says the perfect witty
expression can include so much or like
mean so much because it leaves so much
out so like by leaving a lot out you
force the other person to construct it
in their head which allows them to get
more meaning out of the the witty remark
yeah that's exactly it and
there's a great polish aphorist
stanislav letz in in my opinion he's
perhaps the the greatest atheist of all
time and one of his sayings is
no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels
responsible
and
if you think about that
if you think about that literally it
makes absolutely no sense
and and there's no kind of literal clue
in the literal meaning of any of those
words as to what the actual meaning of
the saying is but the actual meaning
like you were just saying it has to be
completed by the listener
and let's in in writing that he leaves
out all the most important bits you know
what the saying is really about is group
think and how people in a group it's
easier for people to be to go along with
decisions that they might otherwise
resist if everybody in the else in the
group is going along with it
and he was writing he lived in poland
during you know the time of the soviet
union so he was writing about
authoritarianism and political
oppression and group thinking in that
context
but
the way he leaves so much he leaves all
of that out of the story and it's the
listener who has to provide that and
that's a great example of the kind of
collaboration and co-creation that's
involved in in any kind of
witty remark or witty experience
what do you think the state of wood is
today because i think oftentimes people
think of like witty people it's always
from the past i i imagine that's because
like the really really witty remarks
like we just they stand the test of time
but
what do you think wood is is wit alive
and well today or is it on the decline
you know i think there's there's i
i don't think wits like i think wit is
always i don't think wit can kind of
it's not like the stock market it can go
up and down i think it's a fundamental
way that the human brain works and so
it's always there
but
i think in certain
eras or certain periods of time people
think that way more or think that way
less
so i don't know if you're looking at
late night comedy for example then
there's plenty of wait around but if you
take a look at a broader look and
understand which like like i've tried to
understand it in the book as not just
about being funny but as a way of
thinking and as a way of solving
problems and a way of making connections
because i think wit
is more about making connections than it
is just simply about making jokes then i
think it would be pretty easy to
conclude that we're living in a kind of
witless age
sadly because
if you look at our political and social
debates how polarized and partisan they
have become
that is by definition
rejecting the kind of collaboration and
cooperation that's required to
for wit to take place you know you have
to listen and you have to respond you
don't have to agree
by any means but
wit can only happen if people are in
relationship and they're listening to
and responding to one another in a kind
of genuine sincere constructive way
and when it comes to making connections
if you look at
any of
our biggest
challenges
as a society as a planet today
they are all interconnected they're all
multi-disciplinary
and i think witty thinking is is
the ability to make connections among
all these different fields and also to
listen to
diverging points of view and again not
necessarily to accept or agree with them
but to listen and then try and come to a
synthesis that that brings all those
things together that would be for me
like i really encouraging and hopeful
sign of
of us as a as a society living by our
wits well what can people do to start
being more witty is it just making
telling more dad jokes being more punny
i mean is that is that the start is that
is that the i mean what do you think i
think
well i think it's it's um i think you
know
part of being witty is being curious and
noticing things and being alert to
things
and that that has to do with a kind of
open i think a witty state of mind is an
open state of mind you're and that's
again you know you mentioned your kids
earlier
that's what children you know children
are open to all these things and and
they don't kind of prejudge anything
so i think having that kind of open
curious child-like mind in in in that
sense
is absolutely essential and i think
that's another trend that we see today
is you know people being very focused on
a single discipline whether you're an
academic or a professional you know this
is my
my field and and i i know everything
about my field but i
don't know that much about anything
outside my field
and then um it's it sounds kind of
flippant and maybe trivial but i do
think you know like you said making puns
is a really good way to train your your
brain to be to be more witty
and you know having like the simple pun
competition with yourself or with your
family or with your friends it's really
fun but it also
you know the way the way the human brain
works and
the way it incorporates new experiences
and new knowledge is by making different
connections you know the synapses in our
brain
whenever we you know travel to a new
place or meet a new person or learn
something new
new connections are formed in our brain
our brain actually physically changes to
incorporate this new knowledge and this
this new information and when you're
that that's um
scientists called brain plasticity and
it's just basically means the brain's
ability to react spontaneously to new
information and to respond and to to
learn and to grow and
like i said it may sound a little
trivial or
silly but making puns actually that's
what you're doing in your brain
it's you know when you hear a good pun
or you hear a good joke it's uplifting
you know it really kind of perks you up
it makes you more alert and this is also
has to do with brain chemistry and you
know the neuro chemicals that are
released when we laugh or or take in new
information
that has a really positive effect on our
our brain chemistry and our ability of
our minds to keep making those
connections as we age so yes i would i
would urge everyone to
make puns um make jokes and let your
that your
you know let your mind wander into those
areas where you're you can feel free to
make new connections and new
combinations
well james is there someplace people can
go to learn more about the book and your
work
yeah absolutely the book is available
online amazon or if you want to help out
your local bookstore indie bound is a
great um
a great way to connect with local
independent booksellers online
and if people are interested in learning
more about my other books or other stuff
that i do they can check out my website
which is jamesgeary.com well james geary
thanks so much time it's been a pleasure
thank you so much for having me my guest
today was james geary he's the author of
the book wits end it's available on
amazon.com and bookstores everywhere
you'll also find out more information
about james's work at his website
jamesgeary.com also check out our show
notes at aom dot is slash wit where you
can find links to resources where you
can delve deeper into this topic

all right james geary welcome to the

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aphorist::noun | Spocien Dictionary

aphorist

noun

/'æfərɪst/

someone who formulates aphorisms or who repeats aphorisms

Type	Words
Type of	intellect, intellectual
Derivation	aphorism

Examples of aphorist

aphorist

If it's a choice between the tight-lipped or the windbag, give me the aphorist every time.

From the guardian.co.uk

For one thing, Wark is a fine aphorist.

From the guardian.co.uk

How to pronounce aphorist in English?

aphorist::noun | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

Examples of aphorist

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