THE COLLEGE student had a yellow sticky note on his back. It had been patted there by a friend, or possibly an enemy, as a joke. It was funny, but not to the young man.
"Did you know someone put a sticky note on your back," I asked. "No." he said, "what does it say?"
"It says 'I'm in love with my right hand.' "
He snatched it off by stretching his right hand over his shoulder, feeling around for and finding the one-liner.
Being cute, or funny, is an art. Some of the best funny folks are on television, the stage or in movies. Folks like Stephen Colbert, Ellen DeGeneres, Jamie Foxx, Jay Leno, David Letterman, George Lopez, Eddie Murphy, Conan O'Brien, Paul Rodriguez, Chris Tucker and John Stewart.
The Cavalier Daily, however, has a few too many folks trying a bit too hard to be funny.
There is a time and place to interject humor in writing; columns come to mind. But in general journalistic newspaper writing and often in student newspapers, cutesy efforts fail with a loud mental thud.
Important news and information should be written as compelling as possible to be as readable as possible. Journalists use writing skills -- and often voice -- to make the significant interesting and relevant, maybe even engaging.
Individual voice, especially in humor writing, can only be developed through practice, effort, thought and over a period of time. It is not developed through writing sophomoric jokes and one-liners.
A good example of voice was evident in a recent Cavalier Daily column about masturbation -- thus the lead of this column.
Most would admit the topic is a touchy subject, which must be deftly handled. Having written that, I realize the words I choose will suggest many different mental scenarios, so read what you will with the understanding I am trying to play this straight.
The Nov. 13 column was titled "Different strokes for different folks." It was written in a serious but comfortable voice and style. It was informative and easy to read and was injected with just enough humor to make readers smile, possibly with some awkward acknowledgement.
There was, however, an informational story -- not a column -- in the same issue about mononucleosis, the so-called kissing disease. The author selected two too cutesy writing phrases which tainted an overall good effort.
Readers likely could have done without the following: "
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