ABSTRACT
The motivations and functions of humor are being conceptualized in sexual and aggressive terms. Dyadic traditions are behavioral and linguistic routines that are generated, endowed with significance, and maintained within a dyadic relationship. Dyadic traditions are primarily private presentations within the dyad itself. Although these traditions occasionally may be performed in the presence of others, their major field of expression remains the dyadic interaction. Dyadic traditions illustrate as no others that sources of traditions are unpredictable. That is, it would be impossible to predict exactly what aspects of experience are endowed with significance and elevated to the status of tradition by the dyad. Many dyadic traditions are ephemeral. They can spring into existence and disappear in relatively short periods of time. Dyadic traditions seem capable of extraordinary and rapid evolution, as can be demonstrated in the instance of a pet name.
