Wit

Wit

The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things. Ex.: Darling, should we be thinking about obtaining some private tutors for your ass? Why This Is Witty: A woman's can is not a small child, but by pretending that, because of its size, it is in fact an infant, the speaker has obliquely pointed out an obvious truth in a humorous fashion. Bravo!

Partial facial paralysis caused Quentin Crisp to always appear to be wearing a wry smile. Wit followed naturally. In his later years, it was suspected by some socialites that he was so dry and debonair that he literally pissed wit. The red, frothy substance that he periodically voided from his bladder was not, in fact, wit, and the cancer proved to be both aggressive and fatal.

Overview

Wit is that quality in men which produces statements that, when read or heard, cause the listener to believe that the producer of the statement is, was, or badly wanted to be, smirking. Witty statements tend to contain a nugget of essential truth swaddled in the silky chocolate shell of the blasé bon mot.

In civilized society, wit functions as a kind of shibboleth, separating the world into two groups: the ignorant, and the bored.

R&B singer R. Kelly often admonishes women to improve their intellectual and verbal capabilities, using phrases like, "Girl, I want to [remind you of the importance of comporting oneself in a witty and urbane fashion, and I believe strongly that you should] get wit, you."