When life is funny, make some jokes about it. Billy Plimpton has a big dream: to become a famous comedian when he grows up. He already knows a lot of jokes, but thinks he has one big problem standing in his way: his stutter. At first, Billy thinks the best way to deal with this is to . . . never say a word. That way, the kids in his new school won’t hear him stammer. But soon he finds out this is NOT the best way to deal with things. (For one thing, it’s very hard to tell a joke without getting a word out.) As Billy makes his way toward the spotlight, a lot of funny things (and some less funny things) happen to him. In the end, the whole school will know -- If you think you can hold Billy Plimpton back, be warned: The joke will soon be on you!

"The nature of laughter has recently attracted the attention of a number of different disciplines. In two recent colloquia, TRIO (Translation Research in Oxford) brought together international authorities from fields as diverse as physiology, psychology, linguistics, translation and literary studies, and sociology, with scant regard for political correctness. This fascinating and often hilarious collection of essays is the result. With the contributions: Jane Taylor - Introduction Dominique Bertrand - Anatomie et etymologie: ordre et desordre du rire selon Laurent Joubert Silke Kipper, Dietmar Todt - The Sound of Laughter: Recent Concepts and Findings in Research into Laughter Vocalizations Sarah-Jayne Blakemore - Why Can't You Tickle Yourself? Michael Holland - Belly Laughs Walter Redfern - Upping the Ante/i: Exaggeration in Celine and Valles Giselinde Kuipers - Humour Styles and Class Cultures: Highbrow Humour and Lowbrow Humour in the Netherlands Christie Davies - Searching for Jokes: Language, Translation, and the Cross-Cultural Comparison of Humour Ted Cohen - And What If They Don't Laugh? Iain Galbraith - Without the Rape the Talk-Show Would Not Be Laughable Jean-Michel Deprats - Translating a Great Feast of Languages Paul J. Memmi - Traduire le rire Natacha Thiery - Rire et desir dans les comedies americaines de Lubitsch: l'exemple de Ninotchka (1939) Adam Phillips - What's So Funny? On Being Laughed at ...Sukanta Chaudhuri - Laughing and Talking Georges Roque - Le Rire comme accident en peinture Laurent Bazin - La Couleur du rire: peinture et traduction Gerard Toulouse - Views on the Physics and Metaphysics of Laughter"

The Romantic period witnessed decisive interest in how feeling might align with forms of artistic expression. Many critical studies have focused on the serious side and melancholic moods of Romantic poets. Romantic Poets and the Laughter of Feeling instead embraces the sublime and the ridiculous to offer an original and compelling new reading of British Romanticism. It reveals the decisive role laughter and the laughable play in Romantic aesthetics, emotions, and ethics. Matthew Ward shows that laughter was one of the primary means by which Romantics embraced and expanded upon, but also frequently aped and lampooned, sympathetic feeling. The laughter of feeling is both the expression of sympathy and an articulation of its implications, prejudices, and constraints. For Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, the sound of laughter carries the hope that greater knowledge of others derives from feeling for and with them through poetry, and this might lead to a better understanding of oneself. Yet laughter also makes these poets acutely aware that our emotional lives are utterly unfamiliar and perhaps ultimately unknowable. Their prosody of laughter enlivens and exposes; it embodies their sense of?and ambitions for?poetry, and yet calls those matters into the most comical and gravest doubt. Laughter helps define what it is to be human. This book shows that it also defines what it is to be a 'Romantic' poet.

This book identifies the significance of the body through a feminist reconceptualisation of laughter as a means of insight. It positions itself within the emerging scholarship on religion and humour but distinguishes itself by moving away from the emphasis on humour and instead focuses on the place and role of laughter. Through a feminist reading of laughter, which is grounded in the philosophical and psychological works of William James, this book emphasises the importance of the body to offer an exploration of laughter as a means of insight. In doing so, it challenges the classificatory orders of knowledge by recognising and arguing for the value of the body in the creation of knowledge and understanding. To demonstrate the centrality of the body for insight laughter, and thus the creation of knowledge, this book engages with laughter within three thematic areas: religious experience, gendered experiences of laughter, and the ethics of laughter. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in religious studies, theology, gender studies, humour studies, philosophy, and the history of ideas.

This book presents a unique collection of clinical cases to help combat the difficulty of diagnosis and treatment of Syncope. Medical professionals using this book are provided with a reference to a large array of succinctly described and illustrated clinical scenarios. Each case is presented with the results of appropriate tests and critical comments about the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment according to guidelines. Syncope is considered a difficult diagnostic and treatment problem for all who work in the field. Regardless of your prior knowledge, you will find the case studies easy to digest, enlightening, and immediately pertinent to improving the care patients – giving you confidence in your diagnosis and your advice. The editors have developed a lively and easy-to-read book with a focused expert editorial commentary, offering the reader a broader and easily understood context for each case, as well as key citations from the literature. Syncope Cases is a valuable contribution to your collection; edited by seven prominent authorities on the management of syncope from four countries, with more than 130 contributors, this book provides a unique additional step in the fostering of a better understanding of the many factors that can cause syncope, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the delivery of more precise and cost-effective care for syncope patients. It is a contribution that should be widely read, and one that offers the possibility of distinctly enhancing medical care of the syncope patient.

How and when did Shakespeare's audiences laugh, and weep, in early modern theatres? And when laughter, or weeping, were represented on that stage-as they are in hundreds of plays from this period-how were they acted out? This book considers laughter and weeping in the theatres of 1550-1642, arguing that both actions have a peculiar importance in defining the early modern theatrical experience.