10 Books People Pretend They've Read

On average, Americans spend about five hours reading each week. According to our calculations, unless we're a country of speed-readers, that is not enough time to cover all of the classics.

Fair enough - not everyone enjoys pondering the guiding words of thinkers who lived before us. Why, then, do so many of us lie about having read their novels? Is it to sound more intelligent, or worldly? Or is it simply a bad case of FOMO?

Regardless of the reason, The Guardian has reported that "the majority of people" (according to a recent survey of 2,000 people) pretend to have read books they've never actually read. Topping their list are "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell, "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, and "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. Tolkein and Austen also make it into the top ten, and rank towards the top of a similar list complied by Book Riot earlier this year, indicating that maybe people lie about books with faithful film adaptations.

Other explanations are suggested in a recent Goodreads infographic they wittily title "The Psychology of Abandonment." Commonly abandoned classic authors include Tolkien (once again!), Joyce, Melville, and Rand. But Goodreads offers a beacon of hope: According to their survey, over 38 percent of their readers "always finish, no matter what."

Here's The Guardian's full list:

1. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell

2. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

3. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens

4. "The Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger

5. "A Passage to India" by EM Forster

6. "Lord of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien

7. "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

8. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

9. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

10. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte

6 Common Punctuation Mistakes That Drive Us Crazy

Happy National Punctuation Day!

In honor of this very important holiday, we decided there's no better time to reveal our biggest pet peeves when it comes to society's lack of proper, well, punctuation.

We've covered the three common language mistakes that drive us nuts, and we've highlighted the four mispronunciations that put us over the edge. Now, with the help of our Facebook following, the misplaced semicolon doesn't stand a chance.

In addition to the items listed below, many readers expressed an overall frustration with the way many Americans write. "Spelling is not considered punctuation, but the improper use of their, there and they're drives me nuts," said Scott Guiher.

What punctuation faux pas make you feel like fingernails on a blackboard? Be sure to let us know in the comments.

1) The misused apostrophe. This little squiggle sparks a whole lot of controversy--but the rules are pretty simple. To make a word plural, you add an "s" to it. To make a word possessive, you add an apostrophe, as in "my son's book." To make a plural noun ending in "s" possessive, you need only add the apostrophe, as in "my sons' books." Don't use apostrophes to pluralize acronyms and abbreviations, such as CEOs and DVDs. And the plurals of numbers do NOT use apostrophes. It's 1970s, not 1970's.

2) The ubiquitous exclamation mark. Unless used sparingly, an exclamation mark doesn't add any emotion to your statements!!!!! The pervasive use of the exclamation mark only dilutes the powerful feelings you may be trying to convey.

3) The crazy comma. John Garger, a copy editor and proofreader, said there's usually a fine line between conjunctions that need a comma before them and those that don't. When in doubt, he says to read the sentence aloud and see if you automatically pause. If that's the case, use a comma. And don't place a comma with words like "and" or "but" if the second sentence doesn't include a subject. For more advice on how to use a comma correctly, click here.

4) The misplaced semicolon. People probably have more trouble with the semicolon than any other punctuation mark. But high school students are taught a simple rule of thumb that's often forgotten over time: A semicolon should be used to separate two independent clauses (or complete sentences) that are closely related in meaning. Use colons, not semicolons, before a list of three or more items. And when items in a series themselves contain commas, separate them with semicolons. For example, you'd write: We visited Miami, Florida; Austin, Texas; and Salt Lake City, Utah.

5) The quotation mark. Quotation marks should be used to denote quotations. They should not be used to add emphasis to a word, which is sometimes the case in advertisements. If you are writing in American English, other punctuation marks should be placed inside the quotation marks, even if it's not part of the quotation itself. If a question mark is part of the quotation, it goes inside the quotation marks. But a question mark follows the quotation marks if the question mark applies to more than just the exact quote.

6) The blurring of text talk with real writing. Simply put, :) is not punctuation.

Morreal Notes 4, Negative Ethics

When joking we are disengaged, idle, distanced.

Deonotological ethics

Morreall’s 8 moral objections:

1.     humor is insincere

2.     humor is idle

3.     humor is irresponsible

4.     humor is hedonistic

5.     humor diminishes self-control

6.     humor is hostile

7.     humor fosters anarchy

8.     humor is foolish

Humor is insincere—

Humor is non-bona-fide communication, people ho joke do not mean what they say, “I was only joking.”

Proverbs 26:18-19: “A man who deceives another and then says, ‘It was only a joke,’ is like a madman shooting at random his deadly darts and arrows.”

Humor is idle—

Humor does not accomplish anything (disengaged play)

4^th century Bishop John Chrysotom condemned laughter as “a moment of indifference.”  His contemporary Gregory of Nyssa said that, “Laughter is our enemy because it is neither a word not an action ordered to any possible goal.”

7^th century John Climacus said that the mother of laughter is insensibility

20^th century Anthony Ludovici, “the humorous mind shirks the heavy task of solving thorny problems and prefers to make people laugh about them,” humor is cowardly and indolent

humor is irresponsible—

a form of play, humor keeps us from attending to our duties

in humor we suspend our moral concern (laughing at a friend too drunk to stand up)

17^th century William Prynne, comedy evokes laughter at some “obscene, lascivious, sinful passage, gesture, speech or jest the common object of men’s hellish mirth) [which provokes people to] wanton smiles and carnal solace

humor displaces or blocks our concern and action—But Morreall argues not all of the time

Satire corrects society by ridiculing vice and folly

Humor is hedonistic—

Humor is a form of play pursued for pleasure

Often, morality requires a curbing of desires, humor can lead to sexual license ????

The Church Fathers Jerome, Ambrose, and John Chrysotom warned that laughter could lead to illicit sexual activity.  John Climacus lumped the following together, “Impurity, touching the body, laughing, talking without restraint.”  Shameless wanton people “laugh immoderately”

Humor diminishes self-control—

Humor provokes a loss of self-control, the ideal of both religious and secular moral codes, a loss of self-control is a slippery slope leading to all manner of more degradation

Humor is hostile—

Laughter and a loss of self-control lead to the release of violent urges

Humor fosters anarchy—

Laughter and humor lead to the breakdown of social order, comedians mock political, intellectual, and religious leaders and institutions, mockery is a threat to religion and social order

Humor is foolish—

Laughing people are fools who are morally, intellectually, and emotionally defective

Ecclesiastes 7:3-4, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad . . . the heart of fools is in the house of mirth”

Shortcomings in the Ethics of Humor--

Ronald de Sousa calls the phthonic element of humor the malicious beliefs and attitudes in racist and sexist jokes

Ethnic jokes depict an ethnic group as being stupid, lazy, and/or immoral

Ethnic jokes are expressions of hostility toward a “target” group

People tell ethnic jokes not about a group they despise, but about a familiar group, much like themselves, who live at the margin of their culture.  Joke tellers do not believe the characterizations in the jokes to be true. ?????????

What the joke tellers are laughing at is a different version of themselves. . .  When one group hates another, they express their feelings in more direct and damaging ways than by telling jokes. ??????????

Joke about a Polish astronaut flying in a rocket towards the sun: “Don’t worry, I’ll fly at night.”  “This joke did not express Americans’ contempt for Poles as stupid, but their fears about their own scientific and technological ignorance . . .???????

Joke about an Englishman murdering a Pakistani—the joke is not an expression of prejudice and hostility toward Pakistanis . . . ??????????

 The correct interpretation of a joke may not be possible to decide.  What is a racist joke to one person may be interpreted differently by another.   ???????????

Margaret Trudeau joke, bad on all levels!

The Ethics of Disengagement

Racist and sexist jokes: The central feature here is the playful disengagement of non-bona-fide language and actions. . . ????????

When joking we are disengaged, idle, distanced.

Henri Bergson, “Laughter is incompatible with emotion.  Depict a fault in such a way as to arouse sympathy, fear, or pity—it is impossible to laugh.” ?????????

Satire is not a weapon of revolutionaries.  ???????????

As in play and in aesthetic experience, the practical and cognitive disengagement in humor can have harmful effects.

First Harmful Effect: Irresponsibility

When disengaged, we neglect actions that are called for and do things that should not be done.

Sometimes we laugh off a problem, laughing can suppress legitimate concerns, and in doing so we treat serious issues as being trivial.

Joking suppresses acceptance of responsibility.

The disengagement fostered by humor is often deliberately used to deflect criticism.

Second Harmful Effect: Blocking Compassion

Humor can harm by displacing action and insulting those who are suffering, and thereby increasing their suffering.

Joking can be callous, insensitive, and cruel—laughing at little people, humiliating prisoners (Abu Ghraib)—it was a joke, “just for fun.”

Humor can promote insensitivity and lessen compassion—people become objects of humor, less human.  Humor can be cruel.  Humor can promote callousness or indifference to those being laughed at.

Desensitization—Grand Theft Auto

Violence on TV, “it does not seem clear that watching thousands of violent acts on tv each year makes viewers less upset by real violence and less compassionate”  ??????

Perhaps the most widely accepted moral rule is to not cause unnecessary suffering . . . we should not laugh at someone’s problem when compassion is called for.

Third Harmful Effect: Promoting Prejudice

Humor disengages us cognitively from the object of amusement, and thus humor blocks action and compassion

Sexist and racist jokes are based on sexist and racist beliefs, to appreciate the humor listeners/viewers must share the beliefs

Tellers of sexist and racist jokes promote prejudice

Yet ethicists “overlook the fact that sexist and racist jokes, like jokes in general, are known to be fictional by tellers and audiences alike.”  ??????????  Fiction less harmful?????????

The fantastic exaggeration found in so much humor is ignored by virtually all ethicists writing about ethnic jokes  ?????????

Polish astronaut joke:  “The stupidity of the character in this joke is not a piece of information being communicated, but a fantastic idea being presented for playful enjoyment.  What most people enjoy in hearing this joke is not a belief that they are superior to Polish people, but the mental gymnastics they go through in making sense of the line, ’I’ll go at night.’” ?????????

“Those who circulate sexist and racist jokes do it, I suggest, not by making truth-claims but by being indifferent to the truth.  They are disengaged cognitively and practically from the stereotypes in what they are saying, and they don’t care about the harm that circulating those stereotypes may cause.”

The fun in these jokes is based on stretching negative stereotypes.

Putting a “play frame” around stereotypes in a joke supposedly removes those joking from moral scrutiny

Humor’s “play frame” allows prejudicial ideas ro be slipped into people’s heads without being evaluated.  2006 film Borat, a fake Kazakh coming from the real Kazakhstan.  Why not create a fictitious name for the country?

Antique dealers collect racist memorabilia

What is objectionable about sexist and racist stereotypes is that they categorize all members of a group as being interchangeable

Stereotypes write off entire groups as being inferior, demeaning and dismissing them.  The individual is erased.

Such joking can cause malicious distrust, and when carried to extremes hatred and oppression.

“The objectionableness of jokes based on stereotypes, I suggest, is not all-or-nothing, but is proportional to the harm those stereotypes are like to cause.  Where a stereotype leads to little or no harm, a joke based on it may even be acceptable” ??????

 rednecks like redneck jokes, lawyers like lawyer jokes

but for others, blacks people, women, gays, mentally challenged, jokes that stereotype can cause real harm in reducing income, respect, status, and power.

The stereotypes perpetuated by jokes are more objectionable when they are about people who lack social status and power and when those stereotypes are p[art of a social system that marginalizes them—keeping them in their place

A general ethical principle—do not promote a lack of concern for something about which people should be concerned.

Intellectual Virtues Fostered by Humor

1.     open-mindedness

2.     creative thinking

3.     critical thinking

The humorous person may be irreverent and even disrespectful toward those in authority, but that can be beneficial

Humor provokes people to challenge, question, and think for themselves

Democracy requires critical thinking and discussion

Moral Virtues Fostered by Humor

Self-transcendence, rising above personal concerns, egocentric concerns, humor, as self-transcendence, liberates us from narrow perspectives and helps us to see ourselves as other people do

The ability to laugh at oneself not only fosters several virtues but also is essential to moral development

Seeing oneself objectively (??????) is important in being honest with oneself, thus humor can contribute to self-knowledge, integrity, and mental health

Humor contributes to patience, acceptance, and open-mindedness

A sense of humor makes us not only more tolerant of but also more gracious

Graciousness is kindness that allows the other person to relax and not feel threatened.

Humor not only reduces defensiveness but also defuses conflict

Lincoln challenged to a duel, “Cow s*** at five paces.”

Holocaust Humor: Three main benefits, 1. Critical function—focuses attention on what is wrong, sparking resistance, 2. Cohesive function, creating solidarity, people laughing together at an oppressor, and 3. Coping function, helping the oppressed go endure difficult situations

Laughter interferes with propaganda and brainwashing

Morreall Notes, Chapter 3

Laughter probably evolved as a play signal in primates (laugh-like vocalization during play)

Young children similarly laugh play; babies laugh during mock-aggressive play (tickling, “I’m gonna get you!”)

“The laughter of the earliest humans evolved from primate play signals.”

Humor and laughter not necessarily related.  Humor develops in humans later in children: “The stage of development where most theorists begin talking about humor is when young children enjoy exercising cognitive skills in a way they know to be somehow inappropriate . . . The fun here seems to be in violating a pattern that the child has learned.”

McGhee’s Four Stages in Humor Development:

1.     Incongruous Actions Towards Objects (doing something inappropriate with an object for fun)

2.     Incongruous Labeling of Objects and Events (misusing words for fun, calling a stone a dog)

3.     Conceptual Incongruity (imaging a dog meowing)

4.     Multiple Meanings (at about the age of 7 a child can start to appreciate riddles based on double meanings.

At around the age of 8 a child begins to appreciate more sophisticated forms of humor (more grown-up forms of humor like jokes and funny stories)

One of the first forms of humor is thought to be False Alarm laughter (the laughter of relief after the sudden realization that a perceived threat is not a threat—the monsters with horns is not a monster after all).  Such laughter is contagious, spreading quickly through a group.  False alarm laughter is common in both children and adults.

In False Alarm laughter early humans did something more sophisticated than in tickling or mock-wrestling.  They played with a cognitive shift, a rapid change in their perceptions and thought . . . It was this ability to suddenly see things in ways and enjoy a mental jolt . . . that marked the transition from simple play to humor.

Impersonating, mimicking, and pretending were central in the development of comedy (make believe).

The big thing that allowed early humans to play with cognitive shifts, and thus to engage in humor, was language.

Language made possible two techniques that have become central to comedy—the wild comparison and the wild exaggeration.  Exaggeration is possibly the single most important comic technique, and possibly one of the earliest He was so scared that . . .)

Humor is part of all cultures.  The trickster figure—a jokester who reverses conventions—is practically universal.  The court jester can be found in royal court from ancient Egypt and China to nineteenth-century Europe.

Tricksters burlesque leaders and rituals, break rules, and ask questions no one else is permitted to ask.

Many ancient religions ritualized anarchic comic behavior (mardi gras and carnival).

In 5th century Greece anarchic comic behavior gave rise to “komoidia/comedy”

The word comedy comes from the song of the komos, a komos being a band of revelers worshipping Dionysus.

Dionysian festivals celebrated fertility in the spring; as they became more scripted comedy was born.

Greek comdey separated into old and new.  Old Greek comedy abounded in sex, food, drink, and revelry (often somewhat obscene, Lysistrata).  Greek New Comedy was more subdued, more realistic, and the themes are more domestic and romantic.  Humor is evoked by playful wit.  This approach to comdy has been standard ever since.

The basic pattern in humor: The playful enjoyment of a cognitive shift.

Our humor has much in common with prehistoric humor (expressing our enjoyment of a cognitive shift in play mode with laughter).

Cognitive Shift: rapid change in perception.  In humor, often from the cosmic or serious to the trivial, or less desirable.  Jokes most often use a cognitive shift with a set-up and a punch line.  The greater the contrast between the two states in a cognitive shift, the greater the possibility of humor.

Entering into a play mode is crucial to humor.  A playful attitude can be created most often by setting up an obvious fictionalized situation (two armadillos walked into a bar . . .).  We need to know that the situations are not real.  The more obviously fictional the character is, the easier the play is to achieve (Roadrunner dropping a ton of bricks on Wile E. Coyote)

The passage of time is often necessary for serious subjects to become humorous material (but not always).  Another factor in comic disengagement is one’s role—or better, lack of role, in potentially disturbing situations.  We must be disengaged.

Laughter feels good.  There is pleasure in humor, and this pleasure is social, exhilarating, and liberating.  Generally, laughter is social (reading a funny book or watching a funny film Morreall considers to be social, in that they are a form of communication).  Laughter is also lively and exhilarating.  Laughter requires both physically and mentally activity.  Finally, laughter is also liberating because it tends to defy or disrupt the conventions of behavior that normally dominate our lives.

Milton Berle—“Laughter is an instant vacation.”

In humor we can poke fun at not just civic and religious authorities, but the whole serious approach to life.  In humor, we challenge standard beliefs, values, and customs.  In humor, we challenge the hegemony of reason.

Laughter is universal.  To amuse means to make someone laugh or smile with pleasure.  Amusement is thus the state of being caused to laugh or smile with pleasure.

Babies begin to smile between 2 and 4 months of age, and to laugh shortly after that.

Sharing laughter establishes a social bond (“we are safe and can relax together).  Humor is thus fundamental to social experience.

The pleasure in humor has a natural disposition to issue in laughter.

There simply is not single concept of humor and no single concept of amusement for which we can list necessary and sufficient conditions.  Honor is always relative to context.

Humor is a kind of play, and play is essential in early development and learning.

A study of sociopathic murderers in Texas revealed no common factor among them except a deprivation of childhood play in 90% of them.

Kant described wit as the play of thoughts.  According to Morreall, in playing with thoughts we develop rationality. 

Humor is nor simply play; it also serves as a coping mechanism, helping us cope with difficult situations.

Humor is healthy.  Humorous laughter reduces heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, and stress chemicals.  And while negative emotions suppress our immune system, humorous laughter can enhance it.

Humor is an excellent way to disengage ourselves from negative emotions.  We often find ways to laugh at disaster.  Laughter becomes a defense mechanism.

Mark Twain—“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”