Wednesday 3 February 2010

That Wonderful Thing

"That awful thing, a woman's memory!"—Oscar Wilde

As if research done on singer Shania ‘shunno’ Twain’s (see: http://chowk.com/ilogs/75595/30139) perfect facial features was not enough—a study conducted at Stanford University in California has found that women use more parts of the brain than men to process jokes and have less expectation that they will find them funny. Probably this was what the famous wit meant when he wrote the aphorism in ‘A Picture Of Dorian Gray’ and which I have placed at the head of this article.

Even before I read Oscar Wilde, I always suspected there were more moving parts inside a female head than my own—science has now caught up with my suspiscions. A keen observor of both natural and supernatural phenomena, looking at women convinced me long ago that her active imagination never slept and that she could even recall in an instant—given half a chance—not the virtues but the sins committed by her man’s family, reaching back at least seven generations.

More moving parts mean more maintenance, spares related problems and factory recalls, just as fewer parts may result in greater forward momentum, and which explains why the minds of most men resemble a speeding steam engine heading in one direction on a narrow gauge railway track.

I certainly have no objection if women take whatever extra time it takes to understand my jokes but one thing is certain, they derive infinitely more pleasure of the prohinted bore from a decent punch line—or rather what is in between the lines—compared to their male counterparts. This has now been confirmed by the new study at Stanford.

The research, aimed at unravelling the mystery of how our sense of humour works, suggests that women prefer more sophisticated humour and use more complex brain functions to process it. In my most private moments I do rejoice in the fact that the authorities have not imposed a tax after declaring women baby production units that employ no staff to run their minds.

The Stanford research says that women participants of the study took slightly longer to react to jokes that were funny, but enjoyed the punchlines more—although the time difference was marginal.

Now how can one gauge the level of sophistication of female circuitry? I for one have neither measured the facial features of my female loved ones with a vernier caliper nor measured with a stopwatch how many extra nanoseconds they take to laugh either at me or with me.

Looking at any female loved one within the family, I always wonder why God put more wiring inside a head that appears physically smaller than my own—my own being well-proportioned and preganant with ideas. Of course, the most important women in my life tell me all the time—usually when I am asleep and can hear no more—that I am well-mannered and extremely witty.

“Men show more activation of nucleus accumbens (the part of the brain involved in reward and pleasure), indicating they expect to get the joke but when they don’t they get more depressed,” said one of the researchers.

Nucleus accumbens what?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

why did you not post this on chowk?

Anonymous said...

I am impressed.

aukhabutt said...

oy sir jee....kamal da kumm keeta jay....chovk no jutian maro...dafa karo khabeesan no!

Anonymous said...

Ahan!! :)
very funny, no wait...was it ?:P

The maintenance I understand puts considerable work load on men!

So, are you going to show us the blogged-path every time?

Arsh.

JSpirit said...

Very well written, Tahir!

Women's brains have more connections and neural pathways between the left and right sides of the brain. Men like to activate one side and focus... This generally means that women can multi task easier and juggle a baby on a hip, talk on a phone and cruch numbers on a spreadsheet all at the same time!

As I have gone the meditative route, and I was a type A high achiever woman with a multi tasking brain, I find I have switched to working like a man! I like to focus and work on one activity at a time... gets more done with less stress!

Meher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Meher said...

I enjoyed the read. Very witty. But from experience I knew this some how ;)

Anonymous said...

Very interesting.
Theres a very popular joke that a woman laughs at a joke three times:
Once when you tell it, once when you tell her the punchline, and once when she gets it.

Tahir Gul Hasan said...

Thanks all of you daddy-cated readers for being here on this baby's first day out!

***

VANGUARD: give me one reason why I must post all this good stuff on a bad deaf-and-dumb yubb-site like Chowq?

ANONYMOUS: Thanks, I am afraid this will be so unless I decide otherwise. Don't love Chowq to an unnatural level.

AUKHA: Nice to see case me around to this place!

JSpirit: Yes, I know how you do many things simultaneously. Make sure the cookie remains in tact and does not crumble!

MEHER: Daya kijiaye, I dare not argue about your x-perience!

GOONGA: I like your joke; now we're even, right?

Anonymous said...

Doesn't this finding contradict the message of Muhammad? He found women to be less intelligent than men - the testimony of 2 women equal to that of 1 man ?

Anonymous said...

awesome! luv it as usual! we were all missing ur humourous blogs for quite some time...

and it's good to see it here, than at chowk. now we don't have to worry about the crazy people's comments, that spoil the whole taste of the blog.

i also like the green background, got sick of the blue,yellow orange and white of chowk. thnx again:)

Tahir Gul Hasan said...

Anonymous:

Thanks for liking the blog and commenting. Your comments are welcome but you are wrong about prophet Muhammad's two-women-equal-one-man theory. What the Qur'am means is something else.

Vanguard said...

It was just a question...hilarious stuff as usual

Tahir Gul Hasan said...

Anonymous. May 13, 2014 at 6:42 AM

A very interesting and impressive article on Shania.Her songs are awesome but this song of her is breathtaking and my favourite too. I also like the name given, Shannu.
Superb !
Laila

Tahir Gul Hasan said...

TGH. May 13, 2014 at 7:16 AM

How could I write all this, tauba tauba? Shunno made me do it; that's my excuse

Tahir Gul Hasan said...

Anonymous. May 13, 2014 at 11:38 AM

Ha ha ha ! Well I really enjoyed what you wrote and it was hilarious. Good excuse