Snorting Things Out
I snort when I laugh.
Sorry if this enhances or ruins your impression of me. It has to be something extra funny. What? It’s a compliment to the snortee!
This has happened on the air. If it ever happens again, don’t adjust your set.Â
Other snorters who frequent this site include Jody, Mel and Suzie (pictured here during a laughing episode on Bourbon Street–btw..those aren’t her liquor bottles). Something tells me the four of us would be swifty kicked out of one of those laughing/yoga clubs in India where they peacefully teach you how to laugh for health reasons.Â
Why does this form of laughter happen? Did our parents drop us on our heads when we were babies? Are we part pig? Or are things just sometimes THAT funny?  Â
April 10th, 2008 at 6:55 am
the infamous pig snort laugh (PSL).
snort (snôrt), noun: A drink of liquor, especially when swallowed in one GULP. verb: To breathe noisily and forcefully through the nostrils. I had to do some research on this since I have never heard a male snort laugh in all my life! Interesting what I found. Ugh… off to work!
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Laughter Important Ingredient In Relationships
If you are trying to favorably impress a member of the opposite sex, how you laugh could play an important role in whether you are successful, according to a Vanderbilt University researcher.
Researchers recorded the laugh sounds of about 120 undergraduate students in particular kinds of social pairings while they watched humorous scenes from movies like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Jo-Anne Bachorowski, an assistant professor of psychology, along with Vanderbilt graduate student Moria Smoski and Cornell professor Michael J. Owren, discovered that people produce a wide variety of laugh sounds and that many of these sounds show a remarkable range of vocal pitch. Of particular interest was their finding that individuals vary both the number and kinds of laughs they produce depending on the sex of their social partner and whether their social partner is a friend or stranger.
“We think that laughter is one of a package of subtle yet effective tools, like physical proximity and eye gaze, that people use-albeit unconsciously-to shape the emotional and behavioral responses of others,” Bachorowski said.
For example, these researchers found that individual women produced laughs with markedly high and variable pitch when in the company of a male stranger. Linking these outcomes to Owren’s work with nonhuman primates, as well as to basic evolutionary pressures thought to influence inter-individual relationships, Bachorowski said “using this laugh-production strategy may be in the female’s best interest.
“Male strangers are potentially dangerous to females because of their somewhat greater physical size and ardent pursuit of sexual opportunities,” she said. “Men are also biased to interpret the friendly behavior of females as potentially being sexually tinged.” A woman, however, can control the emotional stance of a male towards her by using laughter to shape his arousal and emotion-related responses systems. High-pitched sounds such as the laughs produced by the women in the study are inherently arousing or activating. As a male in the company of a female is likely to interpret his activated state as being positive, the female can therefore shape the male to respond favorably towards her by producing these acoustically extreme laughs.
Circumstances are very different for a man with a female stranger. In these circumstances, women are biased to be somewhat cautious. “If a male wants to impress a female, he shouldn’t make sounds that would increase her level of arousal or activation. In the presence of a male stranger, the female may interpret her arousal as being negative, potentially making her feel wary and uncomfortable around this man. Instead, it may be more effective for a male to initially produce somewhat innocuous laughs at a fairly low rate, and to expand his laugh repertoire only in the course of a developing relationship.” In support of these ideas, Bachorowski and her colleagues found that men in these circumstances produced very few laughs. Of these, virtually none were the arousal-inducing, high-pitched sort.
Other findings from Bachorowski’s research include:
– Mens’ laughter is linked to their relationship history with their social partner. When watching the movie scenes, men paired with friend of either sex laughed significantly more than did men tested alone or when paired with a male or female stranger.
– Female laughter is linked with the sex of their social partner. Females paired with a male friend produced more laughs than females tested alone, with a female friend or with a male stranger. Also of interest was finding that many of the laughs produced by females tested with a male stranger were acoustically indicative of overall smaller body size-perhaps exploiting the male propensity to be attracted to females with more youthful, juvenile features.
– People have an acoustically rich repertoire of sounds–with some laughs actually sounding more like bird chirps, pig snorts, frog croaks, or chimpanzee pants than human laugh sounds.
– Humans produce a wide variety of laugh sounds with a remarkable range of pitch that, for males, can reach the highest pitch of a trained soprano. In females, pitches can be as high as twice those of a trained soprano.
– Laughs can be separated into three basic categories: 1. Song-like laughs, which are akin to our stereotyped notions of laughter and are sometimes characterized by remarkably high pitch; 2. Snort-like laughs, with sounds that exit primarily through the nose; and 3. Grunt-like laughs produced through the mouth, but with no measurable vocal pitch.
“Among primates, humans are unique in the extent to which they rely on cooperative relationships with unrelated kin,” Bachorowski said. “Being able to produce a signal such as laughter, which makes others feel good, may make it more likely that they’ll be disposed to behave positively towards us, both now and in the future.”
April 10th, 2008 at 7:43 am
No way I’m reading all of that.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:35 am
http://images.dawgsports.com/images/admin/Cliff_Notes_Your_Post.jpg
April 10th, 2008 at 8:36 am
this half of one of the paragraphs sums it up:
A woman, however, can control the emotional stance of a male towards her by using laughter to shape his arousal and emotion-related responses systems. High-pitched sounds such as the laughs produced by the women in the study are inherently arousing or activating. As a male in the company of a female is likely to interpret his activated state as being positive, the female can therefore shape the male to respond favorably towards her by producing these acoustically extreme laughs.
I think the PSL is the anti favorably acoustic laugh and is there to scare us male types! (shh… acting like I am at work)
April 10th, 2008 at 9:13 am
…it’s always about the sex…
April 10th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Those are so my liquor bottles!
I was leaving Mama Mia’s in Shreveport after a snorting episode with a friend. On my way out, I said very loud “I have GOT to quit snorting”, I ran right into a Shrevport cop.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I’m in an internet meeting and Suzie’s picture with the liquor bottles just popped up, projected on the wall. Snorting did not ensue, well…it did from me!
April 10th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Sonja snorts like a bull on parade.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Sonja snorts? We have a newsroom full!
April 10th, 2008 at 11:18 am
cbp
What’s your point?
April 10th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I snort when I laugh to. People have always made fun of me but I don’t care. I usually hear, Oh no you didn’t just snort,
April 10th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Like a 70’s discotheque club owner.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Hmm, a snorting turtle. That’s not something you see everyday.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:25 am
The snorters have the best personality
April 10th, 2008 at 11:52 am
That seems to be the case. Uninhibited laughter is always good.
April 10th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Chrissy from “Three’s Company” was a snorter
April 10th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
http://home.mindspring.com/~samrc/sounds/rofl.wav
Truly the greatest snort laugh. Ever.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Sherri - Snorting is the equivalent to BELCHING in public…it just ain’t cool!!!
April 10th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
As Sherri mentioned I am a snorter and proud of it. I still remember being in a movie theater with three girlfriends eating popcorn, junior mints, drinking diet coke and snorting, and suddenly realizing why we there without dates!
I thought that was a picture of Suz in front of her house?
April 10th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
So if you snort while laughing do you snore while sleeping?
April 10th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Mel, your shoulders also go up and down when you laugh. And I mean in a big way! I’m surprised you don’t fly when that happens.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Snorting is so cool. For one thing, you know you’re getting a genuine laugh. Who would do it on purpose?
April 10th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Some girl snorted the other day for like a minute and we were all like wow no way
April 10th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
CJA, aren’t you supposed to be studying or something? This is no place for youngsters.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:11 am
It’s about time you showed up, CJA. This site needs you.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
What up CJA?
April 11th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
CJA - has she always snorted? Or is that a bad habit she picked up hangn around noose folks?
April 11th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
snorting comes natural to us snortin folks. As Sherri says it’s a compliment to those that make us laugh. I can tell from experience something has to be real funny for it to happen
April 12th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I agree. You don’t pre-plan a snort. It just comes out.