full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Chris Bliss: Comedy is translation

Unscramble the Blue Letters


On the other side of the political spectrum, the first time that I heard Rush Limbaugh refer to presidential hopeful John Edwards as the Breck girl I knew that he'd made a direct hit. Now it's not often that I'm going to associate the words honesty and itgietrny with laibumgh, but it's really hard to argue with that punchline. The description perfectly captured Edwards' personal vniaty. And guess what? That ended up being the exact personality trait that was at the core of the scandal that ended his political cearer.

Now The Daily Show with John Stewart is by far the most — (Applause) (Laughter) it's by far the most well-documented example of the effectiveness of this kind of cdeomy. suvery after survey, from Pew Research to the Annenberg cetenr for plubic Policy, has found that Daily Show viewers are better informed about current events than the viewers of all major notwerk and cable news shows.

Open Cloze


On the other side of the political spectrum, the first time that I heard Rush Limbaugh refer to presidential hopeful John Edwards as the Breck girl I knew that he'd made a direct hit. Now it's not often that I'm going to associate the words honesty and _________ with ________, but it's really hard to argue with that punchline. The description perfectly captured Edwards' personal ______. And guess what? That ended up being the exact personality trait that was at the core of the scandal that ended his political ______.

Now The Daily Show with John Stewart is by far the most — (Applause) (Laughter) it's by far the most well-documented example of the effectiveness of this kind of ______. ______ after survey, from Pew Research to the Annenberg ______ for ______ Policy, has found that Daily Show viewers are better informed about current events than the viewers of all major _______ and cable news shows.

Solution


  1. career
  2. integrity
  3. limbaugh
  4. vanity
  5. survey
  6. public
  7. center
  8. network
  9. comedy

Original Text


On the other side of the political spectrum, the first time that I heard Rush Limbaugh refer to presidential hopeful John Edwards as the Breck girl I knew that he'd made a direct hit. Now it's not often that I'm going to associate the words honesty and integrity with Limbaugh, but it's really hard to argue with that punchline. The description perfectly captured Edwards' personal vanity. And guess what? That ended up being the exact personality trait that was at the core of the scandal that ended his political career.

Now The Daily Show with John Stewart is by far the most — (Applause) (Laughter) it's by far the most well-documented example of the effectiveness of this kind of comedy. Survey after survey, from Pew Research to the Annenberg Center for Public Policy, has found that Daily Show viewers are better informed about current events than the viewers of all major network and cable news shows.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
climate change 4
opening line 2
remember thinking 2
daily show 2
great comedy 2
great joke 2
usa today 2


Important Words


  1. annenberg
  2. applause
  3. argue
  4. associate
  5. breck
  6. cable
  7. captured
  8. career
  9. center
  10. comedy
  11. core
  12. current
  13. daily
  14. description
  15. direct
  16. edwards
  17. effectiveness
  18. ended
  19. events
  20. exact
  21. girl
  22. guess
  23. hard
  24. heard
  25. hit
  26. honesty
  27. hopeful
  28. informed
  29. integrity
  30. john
  31. kind
  32. knew
  33. laughter
  34. limbaugh
  35. major
  36. network
  37. news
  38. perfectly
  39. personal
  40. personality
  41. pew
  42. policy
  43. political
  44. presidential
  45. public
  46. punchline
  47. refer
  48. research
  49. rush
  50. scandal
  51. show
  52. shows
  53. side
  54. spectrum
  55. stewart
  56. survey
  57. time
  58. trait
  59. vanity
  60. viewers
  61. words