Wit and Humour
Why This Matters
When was the last time you laughed out loud at a story or a joke?
Laughing feels good. But have you ever stopped to ask why something is funny? It is not magic. Writers use clever little tricks to make us smile. Once you spot those tricks, you enjoy the joke even more — and you can use them in your own writing and speaking too.
This unit is called Wit and Humour. Wit means being clever and quick with words. Humour means anything that makes us laugh. The whole unit is here for one happy reason: to show you that English can be fun.
You will read three pieces, and each one makes you laugh in a different way. One is a story full of surprising ideas — a man who talks to animals, and a horse that asks for glasses. One is a silly poem about a man who does everything upside down. And one is a play about a girl who keeps saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
By the end, you will not just have laughed. You will understand how each writer made you laugh. That is a skill you keep for life.
The Big Idea
Things make us laugh for a reason. Writers use tricks: a surprising idea (a horse wanting green glasses), nonsense that flips the normal world upside down (a shoe on the head), or bad timing (insulting the very person you are talking to). When you can name the trick, you enjoy the joke more — and you learn that careful, kind words matter, because clumsy words can embarrass everyone.
📖 Where to read the original: For copyright reasons, the full original story, poem, and play are not reproduced here — read them in your NCERT Poorvi (Grade 7) textbook. This page gives you clear summaries and explanations to study alongside them.
Before we meet the three pieces, here is a quick map of how each one tickles us. We will explain each in detail below, but it helps to see the plan first.
The Story — “Animals, Birds, and Dr. Dolittle”
This story is written by Hugh Lofting. It is taken from his famous Doctor Dolittle books. Let us walk through it slowly and simply.
What happens
There was a doctor named John Dolittle. He was a doctor for people. One day a man (everyone calls him the “Cat’s-food-Man”) came to him with a stomach-ache. This man gave Dolittle a piece of advice. He said: “You know animals far better than any vet here. Why not become an animal doctor instead?”
Sitting in the window was Dolittle’s pet parrot, Polynesia. She heard all this. After the man left, she flew to the doctor’s table and said the same thing — become an animal doctor. Then she told him a secret: animals can talk.
Dolittle did not believe her at first. So Polynesia proved it. She spoke a line of bird language and told him what it meant (“Is the porridge hot yet?”). The doctor was amazed. He grabbed a book and a pencil and began writing down bird words. Polynesia also showed him that animals “talk” with their ears, feet, and tails, not just their mouths. Slowly, the doctor learned animal language so well that he could speak to any animal. So he stopped being a people’s doctor for good.
Soon the news spread. Old ladies brought their fat little dogs. Farmers brought their sick cows and sheep. One day a plough horse came. It was going blind in one eye. Its old vet had only given it pills and never looked at its eyes. The horse told Dolittle the truth: “What I need is spectacles.” It even asked for green ones, to keep the bright Sun out of its eyes while ploughing. Dolittle calmly agreed and got the horse a fine pair of green glasses. The horse could see again.
After that, it became a normal sight to see farm animals wearing glasses near the little town of Puddleby. Because Dolittle could understand each animal, curing them was easy. The animals went and told their friends. So all kinds of creatures — horses, cows, dogs, even mice, badgers, and bats — crowded into his garden. He had to make separate doors for each kind of animal. The mice even got their own little tunnel.
In a few years, every creature for miles knew about John Dolittle. Birds that flew to other countries spread the news abroad. So he became famous among animals all over the world. He was happy and loved his new life.
Let us see the shape of the whole story as a rising line. Figure 2.2 walks through all five steps.
The characters and speaker
A character is a person or animal in a story. Here are the main ones.
Doctor John Dolittle — a gentle, open-minded doctor. He does not laugh at the idea that animals can talk. Instead, he gets excited and learns. He treats every animal with patience and respect, big or small.
Polynesia — the clever parrot. She is the one who opens the doctor’s eyes. She is proud of knowing two languages — people’s language and bird language. She is a patient teacher.
The plough horse — a wise, honest animal. It knows exactly what is wrong with it (it needs glasses) and is not afraid to say so. Its words carry the story’s deeper point.
The themes
The story is light and funny, but it carries real ideas under the laughs.
Listening to others. Dolittle becomes great only because he listened — first to the Cat’s-food-Man, then to Polynesia. A clever person is not too proud to take advice from anyone, even a sick stranger or a pet bird.
Every creature deserves care. The story gives mice their own tunnel and a horse its own glasses. The message is gentle: animals have real needs and feelings, and they deserve to be understood, not just given pills.
Understanding matters more than power. Dolittle is not the strongest doctor. He is simply the one who understands his patients. The story says that understanding someone is the real key to helping them.
The “why” behind the humour — nothing is a given
Now the most important part. Why is this story funny? Let us not just say “it is silly.” Let us find the exact trick.
The trick is the surprising idea taken seriously. Think about the horse and its glasses. In real life, horses do not wear spectacles. That idea is silly. The humour comes from how calmly everyone treats this silly idea. The horse asks for glasses — and even fusses that they should be green, like a fussy customer in a shop. And Dolittle does not laugh. He just says, “Certainly. Green ones you shall have,” as if this were the most normal request in the world.
That gap — a crazy idea handled in a totally serious, polite way — is what makes us smile. Our brain expects shock, but the story gives us calm. That surprise is the joke.
Here is another layer. The horse complains that “anybody thinks he can doctor animals — just because the animals don’t complain.” That is actually a clever, true point wrapped inside a joke. This is the wit of the unit’s title — being funny and smart at the same time.
The horse asks for green glasses, not just any glasses. Why does this small detail make the moment funnier?
Because it makes the horse sound exactly like a fussy human customer who knows just what he wants. A real animal could never have such a fancy, specific wish. The more human and picky the horse sounds, the bigger the gap between ‘animal’ and ‘how it behaves’ — and that gap is the joke. Dolittle agreeing politely makes it even funnier.
The Poem — “A Funny Man”
The unit also has a short, playful poem called “A Funny Man”, written by Natalie Joan.
What happens in the poem
The speaker (the person telling the poem) is walking when she meets a very strange man coming down the street. Everything about him is back to front.
He wears a shoe on his head and a hat on each foot. He politely lifts the shoe (as if it were a hat) and smiles. He says, “Allow me to present Your Highness with a rose” — but then holds out a currant bun to her nose instead of a rose. (A currant bun is a small sweet bread bun with dried fruit in it.) The startled speaker steps back and jokes that she never saw a rose with such a funny smell. The man then sits on the ground and sings a strange song. When the speaker finally asks why he wears two hats on his feet, the man does not answer. He simply turns around and hops home on his head.
The speaker and the funny man
There are only two figures in the poem. The speaker is an ordinary, polite person who is surprised but plays along kindly. The funny man is the star — a cheerful, harmless, nonsensical person who does the opposite of everything normal.
Let us look closely at all the upside-down things he does. Figure 2.3 labels each one.
The themes and the “why” behind the humour
This poem has no deep moral, and that is the point. Its theme is pure nonsense and fun — the joy of imagination, of breaking the normal rules of the world just to make people laugh.
So why is it funny? The trick here is different from the Dolittle story. Here the trick is swapping the normal — turning the everyday world upside down.
Think about it. We know a shoe goes on the foot and a hat goes on the head. The poem flips that. We know you give someone a rose, not a bun. The poem swaps that too. Each swap is small and harmless, but our brain notices the rule being broken, and that little surprise makes us smile. The funny man is like a clown — he breaks ordinary rules in a gentle, playful way.
The poet also plays with words. She uses phrases like “funny sounding sight” and “funny feeling sound.” Look closely — she mixes up the senses on purpose. You see a sight, you do not hear it; you hear a sound, you do not feel it. By swapping the senses, the words themselves become as upside-down as the man. That is wit — clever, surprising word play.
One more clever thing: the poem uses inversion. That means changing the normal order of words to keep the rhythm and rhyme. For example, “But never had I seen before / Such a funny sounding sight.” In normal order this is “I had never seen such a funny sight before.” Poets often flip word order like this, so do not let it confuse you.
The poem describes a 'funny sounding sight' and a 'funny feeling sound'. What is odd about these phrases, and why did the poet do it on purpose?
A ‘sight’ is something you SEE, so it cannot ‘sound’. A ‘sound’ is something you HEAR, so it cannot ‘feel’. The poet mixes up the senses on purpose. This word-swapping matches the funny man, who also mixes everything up. The strange phrases make the poem feel as upside-down and playful as the man himself.
The Play — “Say the Right Thing”
The third piece is a short, funny play written by G.C. Thornley. A play is a story written to be acted out, so it is written as lines of dialogue (the words each person speaks).
What happens
A mother, Mrs Shaw, is expecting two important guests: Mrs Harding (a wealthy man’s wife) and Mrs Lee (Mrs Harding’s sister-in-law). Mrs Shaw is new in town and wants to make friends, so she really wants the visit to go well.
Her young daughter Mary insists on staying to meet the guests. Mary is sure she can “talk very well.” Her mother is nervous and gives her careful advice: be kind, say things that please people, make them laugh, keep the talk going if it stops — and never say anything that makes a guest angry.
Then the guests arrive, and everything goes wrong. Mary cannot stop talking, and every single thing she says accidentally insults someone:
- She praises Mrs Harding’s “beautiful children” — but Mrs Harding has no children.
- She mocks a banker named Mr Best for “living in trains” and says bankers “can’t think” — but Mrs Lee’s brother is a banker who does exactly the same things.
- She laughs at a lady who wears a blue dress with a red coat — and Mrs Harding says she wears exactly that.
- She criticises a woman who stays in bed in the morning and calls the doctor — and both guests admit they do those very things.
- She points at a dirty dog outside and asks why anyone would keep it — and it turns out to be Mrs Harding’s dog, Towzer.
Each time, the room falls silent. Mary keeps saying “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” The guests get up to leave early, clearly uncomfortable. Mrs Shaw politely asks them to stay longer. And Mary, trying one last time to “say the right thing,” mixes up her mother’s polite line completely. Instead of “Must you go? Can’t you stay?” she blurts out: “Oh, must you stay? Can’t you go?” — accidentally telling the guests to leave. A perfect, disastrous ending.
The characters
Let us see how the four people connect. Figure 2.4 maps them out.
Mary — a young girl who is eager and confident, but inexperienced. She is not unkind. She just does not understand that gossip can hurt people.
Mrs Shaw — Mary’s mother. She is careful and a little anxious. Her advice is wise; the problem is that Mary cannot follow it.
Mrs Harding and Mrs Lee — the two guests. They are polite and patient. Even when hurt, they do not shout. They quietly correct Mary or change the subject. This shows good manners.
The themes and the “why” behind the humour
This play is the most useful of the three, because under the comedy there is a real lesson: think before you speak. Kind, careful words build friendships. Thoughtless words break them.
So why is the play funny? The trick here is bad timing — also called dramatic irony. That is a fancy term, so let us explain it simply. Dramatic irony is when we, the readers, know something that the character does not. We can see the trap coming, but Mary cannot — and we laugh as she walks straight into it every time.
Mary thinks talking a lot is the same as talking well. It is not. Let us follow the chain of why she keeps failing. Figure 2.5 shows it step by step.
There is a neat pattern in the humour. Each insult lands on the one person in the room it should not. That is not luck — it is the writer’s clever design. He set a trap and let Mary fall in again and again. The repeating “No one speaks” stage direction tells the actors to pause in awkward silence, which makes the comedy land.
And the final line is the perfect button on the joke. Mary has been told exactly what polite words to say — “Must you go? Can’t you stay?” She even practised them. Yet in the moment, she flips them into “Must you stay? Can’t you go?” It is a tiny swap of words, but it means the complete opposite. After a whole afternoon of failing, she fails one last time in the funniest way possible.
Mrs Shaw told Mary to make the guests 'laugh' and to 'please' them. So why is Mary's chatter still wrong, even though she talks and even laughs a lot?
Because making people laugh kindly is not the same as laughing AT people. Mary laughs while she mocks and criticises others — bankers, a lady’s clothes, a dog. That is unkind gossip, not friendly humour. Her mother meant ‘say nice things that make everyone feel good’, but Mary says cutting things that make people feel bad. Talking a lot is not the same as talking kindly or wisely.
Putting the three pieces together
The unit places three very different pieces side by side. They all make us laugh, but each uses its own trick. Seeing them together makes the idea clear.
| Piece | Humour trick | A clear example |
|---|---|---|
| Animals, Birds, and Dr. Dolittle (story) | A surprising idea handled calmly | A horse politely asks for green glasses, and the doctor agrees |
| A Funny Man (poem) | Swapping the normal — nonsense | A shoe worn on the head and hats worn on the feet |
| Say the Right Thing (play) | Bad timing — we see the trap, Mary does not | Mary insults a dog that turns out to be the guest's own pet |
Common Mistakes
A few ideas in this unit are easy to get a little wrong. Let us clear them up before they trip you up.
The first one is about the funny man in the poem.
The funny man in the poem is foolish, rude, or a little frightening.
A stranger doing very odd things in the street sounds alarming, and we often expect such behaviour in real life to be threatening, so it is easy to read fear into the poem.
The funny man is gentle, polite, and harmless. He smiles, bows, and behaves with good manners the whole time. He is meant to be a playful clown figure who makes us laugh, not someone scary. The poem's mood is light and cheerful, not frightening.
The next one is about Mary in the play.
Mary embarrasses the guests on purpose because she is mean and wants to insult them.
Her remarks land like sharp insults one after another, so it can look as if she is being cruel deliberately.
Mary is not being cruel on purpose. She has no idea that the people she gossips about are connected to her guests. She honestly thinks she is being chatty and lively. Her mistake is that she does not think before she speaks — not that she wants to hurt anyone. She keeps saying 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know.'
The last one is about the Dolittle story.
The plough horse's old vet was a good doctor who simply could not cure the horse.
A vet giving pills looks like normal, sensible treatment, so we assume he was trying his best with a hard case.
The story makes clear the old vet was careless. He never even looked at the horse's eyes; he just kept handing it pills for weeks. The real problem — a failing eye — was simple to fix with glasses. The point is that he never bothered to understand his patient, which is exactly what Dolittle does do.
Quick Check
Let us see how well the three pieces have settled in. Try these short questions.
Why does the plough horse in the Dr Dolittle story want green spectacles?
The horse is going blind in one eye and needs glasses to see. It asks for green ones so the Sun stays out of its eyes while it ploughs the field. The humour comes from a horse making such a fussy, human-like request — and Dolittle calmly agreeing.
In the poem 'A Funny Man', what does the man hold out as if it were a rose?
The funny man offers a currant bun (a small sweet bun) to the speaker’s nose, pretending it is a rose. This swap — a bun standing in for a flower — is one of the many upside-down, nonsensical things he does.
In 'Say the Right Thing', why does the room keep going silent ('No one speaks') after Mary talks?
Every person Mary gossips about turns out to be linked to a guest — the dog is Mrs Harding’s, the banker is Mrs Lee’s brother, and so on. So each remark causes an awkward silence. We, the readers, can see the trap coming, but Mary cannot, which is what makes it funny.
What is the same about how all three pieces in this unit work?
The story uses a surprising idea, the poem swaps the normal world upside down, and the play uses bad timing. Different tricks, but the same goal: to make the reader smile. That is what ‘Wit and Humour’ is about.
Practice
Now try writing some answers yourself. Attempt each one first, then open the solution to check.
Easy
In one or two sentences, how did Doctor Dolittle learn to talk to animals?
His pet parrot, Polynesia, told him that animals can talk and then taught him animal language. She gave him bird words to write down, and over time he learned the languages so well that he could speak with any animal.
Name two upside-down things the funny man does in the poem 'A Funny Man'.
Any two of these are correct:
- He wears a shoe on his head and hats on his feet.
- He offers a currant bun as if it were a rose.
- He sits on the ground to sing a silly song.
- He hops home on his head instead of walking on his feet.
Medium
Why is the moment when the horse asks for green glasses funny? Explain in 3–4 sentences.
In real life, horses do not wear spectacles, so the very idea is silly. The humour comes from how seriously everyone treats this silly idea. The horse acts like a fussy human customer — it does not just want glasses, it wants green ones. And Doctor Dolittle does not laugh at all; he calmly says, “Certainly. Green ones you shall have.” That gap between a crazy request and a totally polite, serious reply is what makes us smile.
Mary was told to 'say the right thing', yet she embarrasses every guest. Explain what her real mistake was, in 3–4 sentences.
Mary’s real mistake was thinking that talking a lot is the same as talking well. She did not stop to think before she spoke. So she gossiped and criticised many people in town — bankers, a lady’s clothes, a dirty dog. The problem was that each of those people was connected to one of her guests, so every remark accidentally insulted someone. Kind, careful words would have pleased the guests; thoughtless chatter only made the room go silent.
Challenge
Vocabulary: explain the words 'wit', 'humour', and 'inversion' in your own simple words, with a tiny example for each.
- Wit — being clever and quick with words, often in a funny way. Example: When the horse says anyone thinks he can doctor animals “just because the animals don’t complain,” that clever, true point is wit.
- Humour — anything that makes us laugh. Example: A man hopping home on his head is humour.
- Inversion — changing the normal order of words, usually to keep a poem’s rhythm or rhyme. Example: “Never had I seen before” instead of the normal order “I had never seen before.”
The three pieces in this unit all make us laugh, but in different ways. Pick any two pieces and explain how the humour trick is different in each.
Here is one good answer (you may choose any two pieces):
- ‘A Funny Man’ (poem) makes us laugh by swapping the normal world upside down. The man wears a shoe on his head and hats on his feet, and offers a bun instead of a rose. Each broken rule is a small, harmless surprise that makes us smile. It is pure nonsense with no deeper lesson.
- ‘Say the Right Thing’ (play) makes us laugh through bad timing. We, the readers, can see that every person Mary mocks is connected to a guest, but Mary cannot. We watch her walk into the trap again and again. This humour also carries a real lesson: think before you speak.
So one piece is gentle nonsense, while the other is clever, well-timed comedy with a message. Different tricks, but both make us laugh — which is exactly what ‘Wit and Humour’ is about.
Summary
- Unit 2, Wit and Humour, collects three light, funny pieces. Wit means clever, quick word play; humour means anything that makes us laugh.
- “Animals, Birds, and Dr. Dolittle” by Hugh Lofting is about a doctor who learns animal language from his parrot Polynesia, cures a plough horse with green glasses, and becomes famous among animals worldwide. Its humour comes from a surprising idea handled calmly. Its quiet themes are listening to others, caring for every creature, and the power of understanding.
- “A Funny Man” by Natalie Joan is a nonsense poem about a man who does everything upside down — a shoe on his head, hats on his feet, a bun for a rose, and hopping home on his head. Its humour comes from swapping the normal. It has no deep moral; it is pure playful fun.
- “Say the Right Thing” by G.C. Thornley is a play in which Mary keeps insulting her mother’s important guests by accident, because every person she gossips about is linked to a guest. Its humour comes from bad timing (dramatic irony). It carries a real lesson: think before you speak; kind, careful words matter.
- The big idea of the unit: things make us laugh for a reason, and naming the trick — surprising idea, swapping the normal, or bad timing — helps us enjoy and create humour ourselves.
- New words to remember: wit (clever, funny word play), humour (what makes us laugh), spectacles (glasses), currant bun (a small sweet fruit bun), inversion (changing the normal word order in a poem).
What’s Next
You have seen how clever writers make us laugh on purpose. In the next unit, Unit 3 — Dreams and Discoveries, the mood shifts from laughter to wonder. We move from jokes to big dreams and exciting discoveries — the things that push people to imagine, explore, and never give up. See you there.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the summary of 'Animals, Birds, and Dr. Dolittle' in class 7 English Poorvi?
A sick man tells Doctor Dolittle that he knows animals better than other vets, so he should become an animal doctor. The parrot Polynesia then reveals that animals can talk and teaches Dolittle animal language. He cures a plough horse by giving it green spectacles, and soon animals from everywhere crowd his garden. By helping creatures no one else could understand, Dolittle becomes famous among animals all over the world.
Why did the plough horse want green spectacles in the Dr Dolittle story?
The horse was going blind in one eye, but its old vet never even looked at its eyes and only gave it pills. The horse wanted spectacles to see properly, and green ones so the bright Sun would not hurt its eyes while ploughing the field. The joke is that a horse asks for glasses just like a person, and Dolittle calmly agrees.
What is the poem 'A Funny Man' by Natalie Joan about?
A strange, funny man walks down the street doing everything the wrong way round. He wears a shoe on his head and hats on his feet, offers a currant bun as if it were a rose, sings a silly song, and finally hops home on his head. The poem is light nonsense meant to make the reader laugh by turning normal things upside down.
Why does Mary keep embarrassing the guests in 'Say the Right Thing'?
Mary thinks that talking a lot is the same as talking well, so she gossips and criticises many people in town. The trouble is that each person she mocks turns out to be connected to a guest — the banker is Mrs Lee's brother, the dirty dog is Mrs Harding's pet, and so on. Every clumsy remark makes the room go silent, which is exactly the opposite of her mother's advice to please people.
What is the main message of Unit 2 Wit and Humour in class 7 Poorvi?
The unit collects three light, funny pieces to show different ways writing can make us laugh — through surprising ideas, through nonsense that turns the normal upside down, and through awkward timing. The play also carries a gentle lesson: kind, careful words matter, because thoughtless gossip can hurt people and embarrass everyone, including yourself.