I was teasing -- you're welcome

[Botnst]

In Defense of Teasing

By DACHER KELTNER
A FEW YEARS AGO my daughters and I were searching for sand crabs on a white-sand beach near Monterey. A group of sixth graders descended on us, clad in the blue trousers and pressed white shirts of their parochial school. Once lost in the sounds of the surf, away from their teacher’s gaze, they called one another by nicknames and mocked the way one laughed, another walked. Noogies and rib pokes, headlocks and bear hugs caught the unsuspecting off guard. Two boys dangled a girl over the waves. Three girls tugged a boy’s sagging pants down. Dog piles broke out. In a surprise attack, one girl nearly dropped a dead crab down a boy’s pants.

As they departed in sex-segregated lines, my daughters stood transfixed. Serafina asked me, “Why did that girl try to put the crab in the boy’s pants?” “Because she likes him,” I responded. This was an explanation Serafina and her older sister, Natalie, only partly understood. What I witnessed might be called “the teasing gap.”

Today teasing has been all but banished from the lives of many children. In recent years, high-profile school shootings and teenage suicides have inspired a wave of “zero tolerance” movements in our schools. Accused teasers are now made to utter their teases in front of the class, under the stern eye of teachers. Children are given detention for sarcastic comments on the playground. Schools are decreed “teasing free.”

And we are phasing out teasing in many other corners of social life as well. Sexual-harassment courses advise work colleagues not to tease or joke. Marriage counselors encourage direct criticism over playful provocation. No-taunting rules have even arisen in the N.B.A. and the N.F.L. to discourage “trash talking.”

The reason teasing is viewed as inherently damaging is that it is too often confused with bullying. But bullying is something different; it’s aggression, pure and simple. Bullies steal, punch, kick, harass and humiliate. Sexual harassers grope, leer and make crude, often threatening passes. They’re pretty ineffectual flirts. By contrast, teasing is a mode of play, no doubt with a sharp edge, in which we provoke to negotiate life’s ambiguities and conflicts. And it is essential to making us fully human.

The centrality of teasing in our social evolution is suggested by just how pervasive teasing is in the animal world. Younger monkeys pull the tails of older monkeys. African hunting dogs jump all over one another, much like pad-slapping, joking football players moments before kickoff. In every corner of the world, human adults play peekaboo games to stir a sulking child, children (as early as age 1) mimic nearby adults and teenagers prod one another to gauge romantic interest. In rejecting teasing, we may be losing something vital and necessary to our identity as the most playful of species.

THE LANGUAGE OF TEASING

A few hundred years ago, teasing was anything but taboo. Jesters and fools enjoyed high status. With their sharp-tongued mockery, outlandish garb and entertaining pranks, they highlighted the absurdities of all that was held sacred, from newborns and newlyweds to kings, queens and leaders of the church. In the tradition of the jester or the fool lies the essence of what a tease is — a playfully provocative mode of commentary.

But attempts to define the nature of that commentary can be difficult, not least because language itself gets in the way. We may use “teasing” to refer to the affectionate banter of middle-school friends, to the offensive passes of impulsive bosses and to the language of heart-palpitating flirtation, to humiliation that scars psyches (harsh teasing about obesity can damage a child’s sense of self for years) and to the repartee that creates a peaceful space between siblings. It is necessary to look at how we use language — especially at how we deliver our spoken words — to get at what teasing actually is.

The answer can be found, paradoxically, in a classic study of politeness by Penelope Brown, a linguistics anthropologist, and Stephen Levinson, a cognitive anthropologist, which differentiates between “on-record” communication” and “off-record” communication. On-record communication is to be taken literally and follows the rules of what the philosopher Paul Grice described as “cooperative, direct speech”: what is said should be truthful, appropriately informative, on topic and clear. When doctors deliver prognoses about terminal illnesses or financial advisers announce the loss of family fortunes, they adhere to these rules like priests following Scripture.

Very often, though, we do not want our words to be taken too literally. When we speak in ways that risk offense, for example when we criticize a friend, we may add intentional vagueness or unnecessary circumlocutions. Say a friend proves to be too confrontational at a dinner party. To encourage greater civility, we might resort to indirect hints (“Say, did you read the latest by the Dalai Lama?”) or metaphor (“I guess sometimes you just need to blow off some steam”). These linguistic acts establish a new channel of communication — off-record communication — signaling that what is being said has an alternate meaning.

Teasing is just such an act of off-record communication: provocative commentary is shrouded in linguistic acts called “off-record markers” that suggest the commentary should not be taken literally. At the same time, teasing isn’t just goofing around. We tease to test bonds, and also to create them. To make it clear when we’re teasing, we use fleeting linguistic acts like alliteration, repetition, rhyming and, above all, exaggeration to signal that we don’t mean precisely what we’re saying. (“Playing the dozens,” a kind of ritualized teasing common in the inner city that is considered a precursor to rap, involves just this sort of rhyming: “Don’t talk about my mother ’cause you’ll make me mad/Don’t forget how many your mother had.”) We also often indicate we are teasing by going off-record with nonverbal gestures: elongated vowels and exaggerated pitch, mock expressions and the iconic wink, well-timed laughs and expressive caricatures. A whiny friend might be teased with a high-pitched imitation or a daughter might mock her obtuse father by mimicking his low-pitched voice. Preteens, sharp-tongued jesters that they are, tease their parents with exaggerated facial expressions of anger, disgust or fear, to satirize their guardians’ outdated moral indignation. Similarly, deadpan deliveries and asymmetrically raised eyebrows (Stephen Colbert), satirical smiles and edgy laughs (Jon Stewart) all signal that we don’t entirely mean what we say.

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/magazine/07teasing-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[Kuan]

Anyone who has boys know that the flying destructo half nelson with twist flip wrestling move to the neck means I love you. Lots.

[t walgamuth]

The problem is that there is a fine line between teasing and bullying.

Also, esepecially men, in our society we tend to say things meant literally in a way that is disguised as teasing or humor.

Teasing is a risky behavior that I am circumspect about using.

[Botnst]

Biotch!

[KarTek]

I've heard from guys in the military that one always teased and insulted the guys he was closest buddies with... On the other hand, if you weren't being teased, nobody liked you or the teasing turned to torment.

[mgburg]

Considering the verbage of "teasing" - look at how popular some comedians are today...and listen closely to what they're saying and how they say it.

On COMEDY CENTRAL, they run some show called "Mixed something" and it was being hosted by David Alan Greer. It looked a little like the inside of the Apollo.

Anyway, they brought on a white guy...some edgy stuff, but he had the blacks in the audience (about 80%) laughing and slapping like he was black himself...and of course, the white guy goes on about how, in his car, he has "hood" and "gangsta" CDs 'cause he likes the boom and such...anyway, he has his black friend riding shotgun and he's got "gangsta" rollin' and he knows the "n" word is comin' up in the song and he's thinkin' about what his friend is going to say/do if he should say the "n" word and as he looks over at his friend, he says his friend is lookin' at him and the look says "What are you going to do?!?"

He mumbles the "n" word...no harm? No foul?

The audience didn't stray...they laughed 'cause whitey fluffed it and nobody took it the wrong way...they laughed over the uneasyness of the situation...not the situation itself.

Andrew Dice Clay? Today? I don't know how he'd be take and I wouldn't take your dollar to go see him and find out...just not my type of laughs...

And the good guys? Carlin? Pryor? Their time ended WAY TOO SOON for all of us...

I only hope the next generation can keep the laughs on the edge...and us laughing at ourselves...

[A264172]

"“Why did that girl try to put the crab in the boy’s pants?” “Because she likes him,” I responded. "

That is gloriously and tragically true on many levels.

[Mistress]

we are just too serious now a days. people need to chillax as the late bernie mac would say. i am glad we can still tease at work.