Analysis of Rodney Dangerfield's Humor Using Kempson "do-so" Tests

I tell ya, I get no respect! One would be hard-pressed to find someone who could not immediately identify this catch-phrase as belonging to the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who turned his ubiquitous lack of respect into an incredibly successful career. Though Dangerfield is known by many only for his crude jokes directed mainly toward fat people and his own wife, to dismiss his humor as relying solely on mere vulgar shock value is to miss out on the rich semantic word play at work in much of his material. Those who study semantics are familiar with Ruth Kempsons do-so tests, which determine whether word meanings are vague or ambiguous; ambiguity results in a jokey sound, and it is precisely this jokiness that is responsible for the humor in much of his material. Though crude and degrading jokes were essentially Dangerfields bread and butter for his entire career, it takes but a casual perusal of some of his lines to find that he is also quite the semanticist, and that he may deserve some respect after all.

A simple example of this can be seen in the following line: My old man, he was very strict. He allowed no drinking in the house. I had two brothers who died of thirst (Dangerfield). While moderately funny, this is the type of joke that generally elicits groans instead of laughs, and a simple Kempson do-so test will explain why. We have two meanings of the word drinking here, the first referring to consuming alcohol specifically, and the second to consuming any liquid at all; here is the test: Alcoholic Andy drank constantly to keep from shaking, but his wife did not do so, as too much liquid made her feel bloated and sluggish. This sentence works, makes sense, and doesnt really sound jokey at all, so we can deduce that these meanings of drinking are vague, which explains why Dangerfields joke, while it is humorous, isnt uproariously funny. This particular form of vagueness fits into the category of Kempsons third type of vagueness, where the meaning, though in principle quite clear, is very general (Kempson 125). Kempson uses the example of neighbor, which, while it always refers to someone occupying a space in close proximity to ones own, can be applied to any type of person, regardless of age, sex, appearance, or other distinguishing characteristics; drinking is vague in the same way, as it always refers to consuming a liquid, but makes no distinctions as to what type of liquid. While this line relies exclusively upon vagueness, we will see that Dangerfield is more than capable of utilizing ambiguity as well to humorous effect.

My childhood was rough. Once for my birthday, my old man gave me a bat. The first day I played with it, it flew away (Dangerfield). A simple Kempson do-so test will tell us what is going on here; Slugger Stan handled his bat carelessly, but Animal Lover Adrian did not do so, as she knew that one bite would almost certainly result in rabies. In this example we can tell from the jokey sound that Dangerfield is utilizing the ambiguity between the two meanings of bat, one as in baseball and one as in small flying rodent, to produce the humorous effect, and this joke definitely works better than the drinking example, because it utilizes the naturally funny ambiguity, and not vagueness, which is not funny sounding in and of itself, as the basis for the joke.

We see an excellent example of Dangerfields use of ambiguity in one of his funniest lines: I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender (Dangerfield). A do-so test will analyze the two meanings of the word seeing upon which Dangerfield is playing for humorous effect; we have seeing as in being consulted or treated by a doctor (seeing a psychiatrist), and a second meaning referring to a sexual relationship (two plumbers and a bartender). Here is the test: Sleazy Sam was seeing his secretary, but Schizophrenic Steve did not do so, as he didnt think she was qualified to diagnose him. We can tell from the jokey sound of this that these two meanings of seeing are certainly ambiguous, and it is this ambiguity that provides the humor. Dangerfields jokes are meant to be heard, not read, and it is interesting to note that this situation only works when written, not when spoken. When written, seeing only needs to be mentioned once in order to convey the right meaning to both sentences, but, when spoken, it must be repeated in the second sentence, as it is in this example, to convey the proper meaning, thereby producing the humorous effect.

I asked my wife if she liked a cigarette after sex, and she said, no, one drag is enough (Dangerfield). The role of ambiguity is obvious here, as the word drag has two meanings in this situation - to inhale from a cigarette or cigar, or, from Merriam-Webster Online, One that is boring or gets in the way of enjoyment (Drag). Notice that in this phrase, Dangerfield only uses the ambiguous word drag in the second part of the sentence, leaving the ambiguity to be inferred by the listener, essentially forcing the listener to do more work than when the word is mentioned immediately, as in the earlier examples of drinking, bat, and seeing. It is no coincidence that this line is considerably less humorous than the bat and seeing examples, as they both presented the ambiguous word immediately, and the degree of ambiguity is quite large in both. This line ranks alongside the drinking example as one that elicits more groans than actual laughs, and there is a very good semantic reason for this.

The reason that the drinking example is not as funny is relatively obvious, as it does not rely on the naturally jokey sounding ambiguity, but on vagueness, which really has no comedic value at all. The funniest line, evidenced by the class response to it, was the seeing one, which, not by coincidence, not only relied on ambiguity, but featured the highest degree of it. So we can conclude here that the less ambiguity present, the less funny the joke, and vice versa. Going back to the drag line, we see that this one requires the listener to do the most work out of all the examples. Aside from being a relatively worn-out pun, this joke is simply not as funny because the listener has to work to get it, as drag is not mentioned until the end of the joke, and so we must mentally retrace our steps to connect this word with cigarette, and only then can we realize the ambiguity in this word. By that point, much of the comedic value is lost.

So we see that, while much of Rodney Dangerfields material relies on simple crude vulgarity, such as, I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it, and, I have good looking kids. Thank goodness my wife cheats on me (Dangerfield), much of his humor actually relies to a large degree on the semantic feature of ambiguity, the degree of which determines how funny the joke is. We also see that the best joke, the seeing line, is the one that not only has a high degree of ambiguity, but also requires the listener to do the least amount of work, as he actually repeats the word twice in the sentence. Dangerfields humor may be low-brow and a bit dated at this point, but we have seen that much of it can be systematically tested using Kempson do-so tests to determine how funny a particular line or joke will be. Were Mr. Dangerfield able to read this paper himself, he might come up with a line similar to this: I was in the bathroom today, this kid in a stall said he had a paper about my style of humor. So I said, Well, let me see it. He said, Hold on, itll be done in a second. Now that is a bad joke.