I don't think someone with a dry sense of humour is someone without humour, but someone whose humour is not immediately recognisable as such. It's not your garden variety cheery slapstick type, and may be perceived as rather mirthless by those who prefer Benny Hill to Daria. It is a cat's humour rather than a dog's humour. It is the kind of joke you tell without smiling, out of the side of your mouth with teeth firmly clamped together like Dirty Harry. It is unlikely to evoke a belly laugh in response, but more likely a quite snigger.

I think 'dry' and 'wry' humour are overlapping terms, but not completely interchangeable. 'Wry' contains the element of being a bit twisted. The word comes from OE for 'twist' and is presumably where we get 'wring' from. Dry humour can be wry humour, but not necessarily.


Edited by The Pook (02/22/08 10:47 PM)