The Mother of All Parties: http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/08/23/1181265/the-mother-of-all-parties.html
A Ruff and Ready Playmate: http://www.miamiherald.com/2004/12/19/849625/a-ruff-and-ready-playmate.html#storylink=cpy
Columnist writer Dave Berry writes columns with the style of everyday life and humor. In his columns, he writes about and shows readers aspects of his daily life and family such as birthday parties for his daughter, or convincing his wife to buy a dog. He also uses writes in the style of humor because he inserts jokes into his column that are intended for the enjoyment and humor of the reader. An example of an aspect of his daily life, is planning a birthday party for his daughter and all of the planning that goes into it. An example of humor is him exaggerating how his wife is a sworn enemy with anybody who uses the same theme for their daughter’s birthday party or his insertion of an example of how far parents are willing to take birthday parties.
One writing technique that Berry uses to contribute to his point of view is hyperbole. Berry exaggerates many things in his column to add humor to his pieces. In his piece, “The Mother of all Parties,” he states that a woman “used the actual sky, which was visible because [she] removed the ceiling roof with a chainsaw”. Berry uses this hyperbole because it is so far-fetched how anyone would go this far to create a sky theme for a child’s birthday party, that readers will find it humorous because of how outrageous it is. Also, in his piece “A Ruff and Ready Playmate,”, Berry states that a dog will always wait for you, and is always ready, and “sits in the drive seat, in case [it] is called upon to steer.” The reader clearly knows that dogs can not drive in real life, and when Berry exaggerates how a dog is ready for anything, even to drive a car, it paints a humorous picture in the reader’s mind.
Negative diction is another writing craft technique evident in Dave Barry’s columns. When describing his wife when planning a party he says, “My wife is, at the moment, insane” (“Mother”). By using the word “insane” there is a negative connotation associated with it, and the word is emphasizing how crazy she is which makes it humorous to the audience. In the next column Barry describes the dog “Whipping his head side to side like a crazed windshield wiper”(“Playmate”). By using the word “crazed” it depicts the dog, almost as if he was scary. Humor was emphasized through negative diction too, in those two columns, almost as much as the hyperbole's helped Barry reinforce his point of view.
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