Humorous Writing That Still Makes the Reader

¶ … humorous writing that still makes the reader stop and think about what they are reading.

In "Would Hemingway Get Into Harvard?" The authors, John Katzman, Andy Lutz, and Erik Olson offer up a funny essay about the new SAT writing test. To "test" the test, they use two passages from two of the world's greatest writers, Ernest Hemingway and Shakespeare. Predictably, under the new SAT grading standards, both these writers would have received failing grades on the SAT. The authors are trying to make the point that the test is not a real measure of a person's writing abilities, and they do it in a very funny and yet memorable way. They definitely bring pleasure to others, because this essay is so well written you have to smile when you read it, and when you see the outcome of the test scores.

In "Technology Makes Me Mad," by Patricia Volk is a very humorous look at the high-tech world and what she hates about it. Anyone who has every fought with technology of some sort will enjoy this article, and it is almost good enough to make you laugh out loud. For example, she writes, "But I feel betrayed when my state-of-the-art refrigerator breaks down. State-of-the-art actually means no one's really sure it works right yet" (Miller 577). Her humor is definitely meant to amuse others, and it is very appealing because she makes it very personal, so the reader can identify with her and her troubles with technology.

John R. Alden's "Breakfast at the FDA Cafe" is a funny commentary not only on the foods we eat and what's in them, but it is also a sobering look at our litigatious society and how everything now seems to come with a warning label for something or other, no matter how petty or nonsensical the information can be. The writer is also spoofing the FDA, which is the grandfather of warning labels on food and drugs, but still cannot seem to find the cause of food-borne illnesses when there are problems with the food supply making people sick. The writer uses humor to showcase a situation that is troubling, and that is often where humor is used most effectively. A person really does not want to think that the foods they eat are that bad for them, so the essay points out that we really do not think about what we eat and drink. However, it also shows that some regulations can really be taken too far, and used for the wrong purposes, which really makes the reader stop and thing about these issues, which is of course, the essay's real purpose.