Theory is definitely LESS funny than practice

Another day trolling the silly blogs and news in my reader program made me run into this:UK researcher identifies just 8 patterns as the cause of all humor. That looks interesting, says I. Maybe I can finally figure out how to tell a joke. Or, learn to remember them, so I can tell them later. So, I wing over there, and see quotes like this (just a subset):

"Basically humour is all about information processing, accelerating faculties that enable us to analyse and then manipulate incoming data."

I'm not discouraged: this could still be leading to something funny. I note that there's a web site for the book: "The Eight Patterns Of Humour" by Alastair Clarke. You can download a PDF copy of the theory of funny there. So I did. Here's a quote:

We may find anything funny at any time, and whenever we do so it is the result of exactly the same simple process, one whose economy and scope are unparalleled. Underpinning this system are just eight patterns, the recognition of which has produced all the humour that has ever been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or individual taste.

Pattern recognition theory is not so much a system for humour as a system for human intellect since they are, at the profoundest level of their mechanisms, one and the same thing.

And, I'm still not amused. What's funny? All I can see is, as usual with all things said with a British accent, the misspelling of the term "humour." Us Americans, we barely use that word anyway. Using it, makes it clear that something UNfunny is about to happen. That makes me laugh: separated by a common language.

Unfortunately, there's nothing funny about the theory of humor, spelled or misspelled. Oh well. Educational = not funny.