ABSTRACT
One will frequently hear the claim from non-technicians that humor is subjective, by which they mean that different people find different things funny. While there will be differences in what sorts of humor different people prefer, it is worth noting that even when people do not find a brand of humor to their taste, they generally recognize it as humor. Humorous acts are intentional acts. The claim that the act must be conspicuous means that it is an aesthetic act intended for an audience. Humor is necessarily playful, but the notion of play is not the one that is often used with respect to humor. By cleverness is meant a display of a cognitive virtue. There are multiple ways for an act to be clever, but what allows people to term it clever is that it displays a trait of thought that would be advantageous if applied outside of the play frame.
