Form-versus-content humour is a type of humour in which the way a statement is made contributes to making the statement humorous.

Usually this is by the means of having some contradiction between the medium and the message; for example, by presenting a message in a form that inherently defeats the ostensible purpose of the message, or in a form that is fundamentally incapable of carrying the important part of the message.

Examples

A red index card with GREEN written on it is an example for this type of humour, because the literal message contradicts the optical message of the medium on which it is transmitted. Another example would be the image of heavily armed military troops carrying a sign saying "We come in peace," or "NO GRAFFITI" spray painted on a wall.

Form-versus-content humour is very popular in the hacker culture. An example this is the term "SIGHEIL". By its form, it appears to be a signal from a POSIX OS, yet its message is the German Expression Sieg Heil, which is a symbol for the Third Reich.

See also

• congruence
• context
• content
• speech
• nonverbal communication
• indirect self-reference
• ceci n'est pas une pipe