Inherently funny word

Words may be considered inherently funny, for reasons ranging from onomatopoeia to phonosemantics. Such words have been used by a range of influential comedians, including W. C. Fields, to enhance the humor of their routines.

For example, the BBC Radio 4 panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue includes an occasional round called "Straight Face", in which the panelists take turns saying a single word. A player is eliminated from the game if anyone in the audience laughs at their word ("even the merest titter"). The winner is the last player standing.

It is part of the mythology of actors and writers that the consonant plosives (so called because they start suddenly or "explosively") p, b, t, d, k, and g are the funniest sounds in the English language.

Funny numbers

According to Douglas Adams, the idea that the answer to "the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42 is funny because it is an "ordinary, smallish" number.

In the 1996 video Caesar's Writers, former writers for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows discuss a skit in which Imogene Coca places a bet on a roulette wheel. The writers tried out several numbers before deciding "thirty-two" was the funniest number Coca could say. Neil Simon, one of the writers, went on to write Laughter on the 23rd Floor, based on his experiences writing for Caesar. He claimed the 23 in the play's title was a transposition of 32^{[citation needed]}. Carl Reiner created the Dick Van Dyke Show based on his experiences as a writer for "Your Show of Shows." In a first season episode, "The Curious Thing About Women," Morey Amsterdam's character, Buddy, explains that a package in a comedy skit they are writing should contain 32 pounds of hair, rather than 15, because "32 has always been a funnier number. I hear 32, I get hysterical!"

Comedian and singer-songwriter "Weird Al" Yankovic uses the number 27 prominently in his parody songs and videos because, according to him, "twenty-seven is a funny number."

On the DVD commentary for the British sitcom I'm Alan Partridge, its writers put forward their own theory of funny numbers, going against the more common view that smaller, specific numbers are funny and instead employing large, round numbers (e.g. "a million pounds"). Steve Coogan, creator and star of the sitcom, said in an interview: "... like the number 37. Everyone uses that as a funny number. It's used quite a lot as a random comedy number, like 'that's the 37th time this has happened.' People should use random numbers more. Like 'fifty.' Alan Partridge's assistant is fifty. That was her age. And it sounded funny; I would say, 'this is my assistant Lynn, fifty.' "

Examples of references to the concept

• The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Outrageous Okona" features Joe Piscopo as a comedian who, in attempting to teach the android Data the concept of humor, refers to words ending in a k as funny.
• In a sketch on The O'Franken Factor, Al plays an "outsourced" version of himself with an exaggerated Pakistani accent, who remarks that "All of my material is in my native language, Urdu. And most of it is wordplay that would not translate. Hard k's and p's, though, such as 'hockeypuck,' are always funny, just ask 'Don Rickles, the king of the put-down.'"
• In The Simpsons episode "Homie the Clown", Krusty the Clown tells Homer during a lesson at his clown college: "Memorize these funny place names: Walla Walla, Keokuk, Cucamonga, Seattle." Upon hearing the word "Seattle", Homer bursts into laughter.
• Comedian George Carlin, also drawing from W. C. Fields, talks about kumquats, garbanzos, succotash and guacamole in his older routines, claiming that because of their names they are "too funny to eat."
• In an episode of All That the cast is shown as having to try out for their spots on the show. In one event they are told to come up with funnier versions of given words, such as "pants," to which Kenan replies with the word "trousers".
• In the December 21, 1989 Dilbert comic strip, Dilbert uses his computer to determine the funniest words in the world, coming up with chainsaw, weasel, prune, and any reference to Gilligan's Island.
• In the episode of SpongeBob SquarePants "New Student Starfish," SpongeBob tries to make Patrick laugh by saying, "I thought of something funnier than 24...25!"
• In an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ("The Last Roundup"), Pinkie Pie mentions kumquat and pickle barrel, and also Cherrychanga, a portmanteau of cherry and chimichanga.
• On the cover of his book 'How I Escaped My Inevitable Fate' the comedian Stewart Lee nominates 'wool' as an inherently funny word.

Funny nonsense words

Words may be invented to sound funny. Instances include many works by Dr. Seuss; Goon Show scripts, which often included funny nonsense words, such as ploogie, plinge, lurgy (lurgi), ying-tong-iddle-i-poh and needle-nardle-noo; and the Knights who say Ni skit from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Context-dependent funny words

The notion of the inherently funny word should not be confused with situations when a certain word sounds funny when unexpectedly used in an inappropriate situation.

For example, the absurdist superhero The Tick, when required to choose a battle cry, chooses "Spoon!", while in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, the "rudest word in the Universe" is revealed to be "Belgium".

See also

• Anti-humor
• Ideophone
• Malapropism
• Speech error
• Nonsense poetry
• Cellar door

References

Bibliography

• Barry, Dave (1991), Dave Barry Talks Back, 1st edn., New York: Crown. ISBN 0-517-58546-4.
• The Power of the Plosive, Tips & Tactics, 1st Quarter 1999, The Naming Newsletter, Rivkin and Associates.
• H. L. Mencken, "The Podunk Mystery", The New Yorker, September 25, 1948.

Notes

Further reading

• Warren Shibles, "Humor Reference Guide: A Comprehensive Classification and Analysis" (Hardcover) 1998 ISBN 0-8093-2097-5