Your laughter could say a lot about you
Apr 08, 2004
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Mark Twain Perched on high stools, the men all talk light heartedly. Endlessly, they move from story to story and all else are awed by the composure of the whole group. They occasionally break into laughter.
By Emmanuel Ssejjengo
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Mark Twain Perched on high stools, the men all talk light heartedly. Endlessly, they move from story to story and all else are awed by the composure of the whole group. They occasionally break into laughter.
Only then do you notice that they are all unique individuals that can be separated from the group.
Laughter attracts attention. And that is how the group convincingly ‘steals’ our attention. ‘Haahaa...haaaa..haha...’, instantly laughs aloud.
No one can beat that. Laughter that buries the blaring music of a bar is as shocking as it is interesting. But who is the laughing guy stepping over everyone?
‘That is Albert’, a regular of the bar informs me. ‘You cannot miss him when you come here. He laughs loudest’. And that is just what he is. Arrogant, with a top-of-the-world attitude. ‘He just does not give a f**k about anyone or anything,’ his friend puts it.
He is quick to defend himself. ‘It takes a lot of confidence to laugh like me. I am big and bold with a heart of gold’, he bursts out like thunder, bending now and then to hold the laughter back, grabbing his crouch like that will draw attention away from the source of laughter, slapping the stool, stumpping his foot. And all the while everyone seems to have finished laughing a while back.
For Herbert Kayonda, it symbolises a good sense of humour.
But do we ever stop and think just how people judge who we are by the way we laugh? The Chinese know better. To them, to laugh is to ‘open up your heart’.
‘Laughter is a gesture that speaks for itself’, says Dr. Peter Atekyereza, head of the Sociology Department, Makerere University.
The way a person laughs is developed right from when he or she is young up to the point of maturity. You may be many things, but you are your laughter.
‘During adolescence’, Lydia Tusiime, a sociologist observes, ‘girls laugh so much’. The adults begin to suspect that the juveniles are laughing at them and try to bloke the habit. They use comments like ‘you laugh at anything; even a passing fly’.
With such controls, people become inhibited in the way they laugh.
You can now tell who was brought up and who just grew up.
‘The extrovert will attract attention when he laughs while the introvert will avoid being seen to be laughing’, says James Okello .
Even at the funniest of moments, some people will only put on a slobbering grin, let alone giggle.
There is the akakule laughter: loud, long and ends with a sigh that diminishes into a cosmetic smile with a slow yet exaggerated swing of the head.
Anatole Kiliggwajjo, a lecturer of Luganda at Makerere University, says ‘it is women who laugh like that because they have deeper feelings than men’.
But when you hear this kind, beware. Kiliggwajjo insists that it usually results from gossip and the intention is to annoy others.
However, akakule can go beyond being a mere spice for gossip. ‘It is cultural and is usually associated with people from the East’, Kiliggwajjo elaborates. When in the East, it is not undesirable.
For laughing badly, the ladies get the harshest treatment. ‘She laughs like a housemaid’, we blabber like maids come from another planet.
Jackson Ssenkungu always referred to a classmate as a prostitute because of the way she laughed.
‘It is not natural but forced’, he explains. Prostitutes find ways of attracting potential clients through laughter. ‘The law of necessity dictates this’, Atekyereza explains why different categories of people laugh differently.
‘It is not fair to judge people depending on the way they laugh’. Atekyereza explains. But it is how people have been judging you if you have been laughing through this article! And they have seen you.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Mark Twain Perched on high stools, the men all talk light heartedly. Endlessly, they move from story to story and all else are awed by the composure of the whole group. They occasionally break into laughter.
Only then do you notice that they are all unique individuals that can be separated from the group.
Laughter attracts attention. And that is how the group convincingly ‘steals’ our attention. ‘Haahaa...haaaa..haha...’, instantly laughs aloud.
No one can beat that. Laughter that buries the blaring music of a bar is as shocking as it is interesting. But who is the laughing guy stepping over everyone?
‘That is Albert’, a regular of the bar informs me. ‘You cannot miss him when you come here. He laughs loudest’. And that is just what he is. Arrogant, with a top-of-the-world attitude. ‘He just does not give a f**k about anyone or anything,’ his friend puts it.
He is quick to defend himself. ‘It takes a lot of confidence to laugh like me. I am big and bold with a heart of gold’, he bursts out like thunder, bending now and then to hold the laughter back, grabbing his crouch like that will draw attention away from the source of laughter, slapping the stool, stumpping his foot. And all the while everyone seems to have finished laughing a while back.
For Herbert Kayonda, it symbolises a good sense of humour.
But do we ever stop and think just how people judge who we are by the way we laugh? The Chinese know better. To them, to laugh is to ‘open up your heart’.
‘Laughter is a gesture that speaks for itself’, says Dr. Peter Atekyereza, head of the Sociology Department, Makerere University.
The way a person laughs is developed right from when he or she is young up to the point of maturity. You may be many things, but you are your laughter.
‘During adolescence’, Lydia Tusiime, a sociologist observes, ‘girls laugh so much’. The adults begin to suspect that the juveniles are laughing at them and try to bloke the habit. They use comments like ‘you laugh at anything; even a passing fly’.
With such controls, people become inhibited in the way they laugh.
You can now tell who was brought up and who just grew up.
‘The extrovert will attract attention when he laughs while the introvert will avoid being seen to be laughing’, says James Okello .
Even at the funniest of moments, some people will only put on a slobbering grin, let alone giggle.
There is the akakule laughter: loud, long and ends with a sigh that diminishes into a cosmetic smile with a slow yet exaggerated swing of the head.
Anatole Kiliggwajjo, a lecturer of Luganda at Makerere University, says ‘it is women who laugh like that because they have deeper feelings than men’.
But when you hear this kind, beware. Kiliggwajjo insists that it usually results from gossip and the intention is to annoy others.
However, akakule can go beyond being a mere spice for gossip. ‘It is cultural and is usually associated with people from the East’, Kiliggwajjo elaborates. When in the East, it is not undesirable.
For laughing badly, the ladies get the harshest treatment. ‘She laughs like a housemaid’, we blabber like maids come from another planet.
Jackson Ssenkungu always referred to a classmate as a prostitute because of the way she laughed.
‘It is not natural but forced’, he explains. Prostitutes find ways of attracting potential clients through laughter. ‘The law of necessity dictates this’, Atekyereza explains why different categories of people laugh differently.
‘It is not fair to judge people depending on the way they laugh’. Atekyereza explains. But it is how people have been judging you if you have been laughing through this article! And they have seen you.