Bruno's Column:
Creating Original Humour for your Wedding Speeches[3]
The Rule of Three

Hello folks and welcome to this month's column on how to personalise your wedding speeches.

This time we're considering the creation of jokes using what's known in humour writing circles as The Rule of Three. This is a triple sequence which is used to increase suspense and tension with a longer build up, leading (hopefully) to an uproarious laugh at the end.

The Rule of Three has been used for centuries in creative writing of all sorts, but particularly in children's stories. For instance there's the three blind mice, the three little pigs and Goldilocks and the three bears, to mention just three (how's that for a quick rule of three!)

This device works because the audience / reader is compelled to wait for the payoff, which in the world of humour is the punchline… and not only that but is compelled to wait just the right amount of time.

Please bear in mind that the majority of your jokes should come in "singles", not "triples". But consider this: a joke in "twos" for some reason generally doesn't work - somehow the delay and correspondingly the suspense isn't long enough, and a "four" is normally far too long.

There is something about a joke set up as a three that makes it work just right. One may be funny, two isn't, four isn't, but three is. And it's generally more effective than the same joke told as a "single."

Let's illustrate this with an example. The most famous type of Rule of Three joke is the legendary: "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman were in a…"

Now I don't for a minute suggest that you use one of these in your wedding speech as they are generally outrageously politically incorrect. A politically correct one however will illustrate my message nicely, even though it's as old as the hills. Don't worry, there'll be some brand new ones in a few moments. Here goes:

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman were in a field. The Englishman said: "Look at that English cow over there." The Irishman said: "No, it's an Irish cow." But the Scotsman said: "Actually, you're both wrong. It's a Scottish cow. Look, it's got bagpipes under it."

Would this work? A Scotsman was in a field and said: "Look, you can tell that's a Scottish cow because it's got bagpipes under it." I don't think so. So you can see that "tripling up" does improve this joke. (It's probably just as well!)

I'm not suggesting that you pepper your speech with Rule of Three jokes, but certainly one would be a fine addition to the style and content of your speech, and maybe even two.

How do you create a Rule of Three joke? First of all the third part needs to be funny; for that you need an element of surprise - set up the joke in the introduction, delay the surprise once, delay it twice and Bingo! In goes the punchline.

How about these, specially created for this article:

1. Ellen always takes 3 hours and 3 seconds to get ready: one hour to put on her make up, two hours to choose an outfit and 3 seconds to make up an excuse for being late.

2. Katy was driving me to work recently. We had a row and she accused me of being childish. So I got out of the car, slammed the door and caught a choo-choo instead.

3. Teachers have been given permission to deal with classroom thugs - now they can give them a clip around one ear, a clip around the other and shove 500 volts between them.

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous is another good way of getting laughs. This is true of humour generally, but particularly with Rule of Three.

Here's an example:

Now, as many of you know, Harry runs a successful business in property maintenance, although he has always been very modest about this. This caused a slight problem recently when he designed some new business cards.

He started with "Harry Stone - Managing Director," but he thought that was too boastful.

Then he went for "Harry Stone - executive in charge of commercial property, including air conditioning and sanitation." Trouble was that was too long.

So in the end he opted for "Harry Stone, bogs and boilers a speciality!"

Well that's about all for this month. I wish you all the best with your preparations.

With your wedding speeches package from FineSpeeches.com you will increase greatly your chances of satisfying both your audience and yourself on the Big Day.

Good luck!

Bruno Barton

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