Christopher Duffy

And again, these are things that I think about when I'm writing stand-up jokes or writing jokes for a comedy TV show.

But I think that they actually do apply when you're just having a conversation or trying to have more laughter in your regular life as a regular person.

Because you can think about, right,

if if you are someone who sometimes finds yourself like being the awkward one in conversations one one typical problem that people have is that they they have brought something up like too many times they haven't followed the rule of three instead they're following the rule of four or five so if there's something that makes everyone laugh you have like this natural occurring joke where right like someone hears a car horn honk outside and they go like hey i'll be out in a minute and everyone laughs okay it's kind of a silly like basic whatever joke but then

Next time a car honks, someone else says, hey, I'll be out in a minute.

Someone else says that.

And it's funny.

It's really funny.

If you do it a third time, it's definitely going to be funny.

But if you do it a fourth time, people are going to be like, we've already heard the car horn joke.

That's past it.

And sometimes people don't realize that they're kind of beating this thing into the ground.

The other ones of like,

that you want to end with the funniest thing.

One of the common ways that people ask for help with comedy is like, I have to write a speech or I have to give a toast at a wedding.

And I think this is one of the biggest things that people forget, is they say the funny thing and then they're intending to say another sentence after.

And it's like, if you have a funny anecdote and it ends with, and that's when we found out that it was my brother in the car,

Don't say something else.

Just say, and that's what you found out.

It was my brother in the car.