New Hypotheticals Made Logical

People ask “What if?” as part of life. Science asks “What if?” A few examples from this site:

1. What if another advanced species existed?
2. What if Earth were twice as big?
3. What if a giant asteroid hadn't wiped out the dinosaurs?
4. What if all the cats in the world suddenly died?
5. What if you only ate one type of food?

We call these hypotheticals and they are important to our lives. But comedy, too, uses hypotheticals. Funny people form a hypothetical then create something interesting based on the question. Then they answer the question (as seen in the links). 

1. What if a cat became a businessman? 
2. What if a man lived to be 2000 years old? 
3. What if airlines were extremely cheap?

The trick of asking “What if?” is to identify how to ask the questions. The grammar may look something like this:

What if	noun phrase	past verb	etc.	?
		was
		were

But, as usual, there’s more to this than just the grammar.

Step 1: Think of a hypothetical. This is surprisingly easy. You don’t have to worry here about logic. You can take the above hypotheticals, and mix and match different parts. Examples:

1. What if another species became businessmen?
2. What if all cats were 2000 years old?
3. What if airlines had wiped out the dinosaurs?
4. What if you ate only food that was extremely cheap?

Try this yourself. Look at these: http://iteslj.org/questions/whatif.html. Mix and match a few of these. You can also make up your own, if you like.

Step 2: Now think of a paragraph that summarizes the results. This time, take the illogical idea and make it seem logical. “If airlines had wiped out the dinosaurs, there would be fossilized remains of buildings that crashed into T-Rexes. Scientists would be finding wrecked planes with the materials.”

Step 3: Make a dialogue or script using ideas from your paragraph. You can change things if you like. The point is to explore the humor of the original idea.

Now, there's more to humor than that, but this gets people started. The important goal here is to ask a new "What if?" and explore the logic of the idea. If it's not so funny, don't worry. That will come in time and with experience.

And if you do try this in class, let me know how it works. OK, if it works. And if it doesn't, let me know that, too!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Roger