Inherently funny word

The belief that certain words are inherently funny, for reasons ranging from onomatopoeia to sexual innuendo, is widespread among people who work in humor. Opinions vary widely regarding this idea; there is no generally agreed-upon list of funny words and some people consider it to be a meaningless or nonsensical concept.

Cultural variation

The concept of inherent humor appears to be heavily dependent on culture. Yiddish and German words, for example, are a staple of humor in American English, in particular those that begin with the /ʃ/ ("sh") sound, spelled sch- (or sometimes sh- in Yiddish). Take for example the derisive prefix shm- or schm-, as in "Oedipus schmoedipus!" - the trick known as schm-reduplication. Similarly, texts in Dutch often seem comical to English-speaking readers, perhaps because much written Dutch is partially intelligible but curiously spelled from an English-language point of view. The Dutch, on the other hand, consider Swedish to be a very funny language. For speakers of English, most Slavic languages are funny, probably due to the excess of fricative and affricate sounds. Surprisingly enough, speakers of Slavic languages themselves find all other Slavic languages utterly hilarious, for instance Czech language is side-splitting for Poles and Belarusians, largely because many perfectly ordinary Czech words sound similar to diminutives in those languages. Czechs and Slovaks also find Polish expressions hilarious, not because they sound like diminutives, but because they sound silly. Jokes featuring real or faux-Polish words exist in the Slovak and Czech languages.

It has been determined using the comparative method that the Finnish language developed the sound Ö [ø] relatively recently to introduce a fronted counterpart to [o], in line with [a] - [æ] and [u] - [y]. Moreover, the new sound has found use mostly in words considered by many to be derisive or amusing. For example, the reason the vowel /ö/ was originally used for the word pöllö "owl" was to make it sound stupid, since the Finnish mythology and folklore always presents the owl as a stupid animal. Most words meaning "stupid" contain /ø/, e.g. hölmö, pöhkö, höhlä, höperö, pöpi. [1] [2] Words with front vowels, especially with [ø], are inherently funny, or derisive, e.g. älä hölise ja kälätä "don't talk nonsense and babble". In Finnic linguistics, the term "expressive" is often used. One can consider words such as jööti "gross chunk" or "törkeä" obscene, aggravated (legal). Words that contain either <ö> or <öö> and are neutral-sounding are uncommon. Notice that this doesn't apply to the diphthongs <öy> and <yö>, which have developed from earlier sounds, and are not inherently funny.

English language

Comedy

Some influential comedians have long regarded certain words in the English language as being inherently funny and have used these to enhance the humour of their routines. By propagating the idea that the words are funny, comedy routines may increase the comedy potential of the words by adding another level of comic association.

For example, the radio 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. The fact that this game works, and that it is possible to predict more or less accurately which words are safe to use and which are unsafe, can be construed as evidence that the phenomenon is real.

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 - particularly when found in short words since these create the greatest tension, generally regarded as a key to comedy. Example: Underpants would be funnier than underwear.

Close vowels may be inherently funnier than open vowels: the euphemistic curse word "frick" is funnier than Battlestar Galactica's invented curse word, "frak". Alliteration also contributes to humour. Ken Levine's comment that Jack Bauer has not received so much as a "holiday ham" for his services to the country is funnier than "Christmas ham" or other non-alliterative variations.

Additionally, the meaning of the word can play a factor. Many languages' word for duck is considered to be funny in that language, perhaps because ducks are seen as a silly animal, as shown by Richard Wiseman's LaughLab experiment[3].

Additionally, taboos associated with certain words can make a word humorous in certain circumstances.

Unresolved questions about inherently funny words include:

• Are there any known physiological or linguistic reasons for why these words are funny?
• Are the funny sounds the same in other languages?

Funny numbers

Some comedians even maintain that certain numbers are funnier than others, although they tend to rely on context to set up an expectation of size or exactitude.

Humor can be found when numbers are oddly exact (such as the Car Talk standard prize of a gift certificate for 26 dollars) or of an order of magnitude different from what is expected (such as Dr. Evil's holding the world to ransom for a meager one million dollars).

The idea that the answer to the "ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" is 42 is funny, according to author Douglas Adams, because it is an "ordinary, smallish" number, whereas numbers relating to space tend to be extremely large or extremely small and exact to many decimal places, while numbers invested with mystical significance tend to be prime.

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.[4] 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.

The number 69 is considered amusing by some due to its sexual references.

Additionally, there is a concept in comedy of the "rule of three", which suggests that things in threes are funnier or more satisfying than other numbers of things. Specifically, because jokes create expectations and violate them for humor, a set of three is the smallest set of elements that both establishes a pattern and violates it.

Examples of references to the concept

• Gary Larson, in The Prehistory of the Far Side writes: "Cows, as some Far Side readers know, are a favorite subject of mine. I've always found them to be the quintessentially absurd animal for situations even more absurd. Even the name 'cow', to me, is intrinsically funny."
• In Neil Simon's play The Sunshine Boys, a character says, "Words with a k in it are funny. Alka-Seltzer is funny. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny. All with a k. Ls are not funny. Ms are not funny."
• In an article in the New Yorker published in 1948, H. L. Mencken argues that "k words" are funny. "K, for some occult reason, has always appealed to the oafish risibles of the American plain people, and its presence in the names of many ... places has helped to make them joke towns ... for example, Kankakee, Kalamazoo, Hoboken, Hohokus, Yonkers, Squeedunk, and Brooklyn."
• 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 Monty Python sketches:
  • Monty Python's "Woody and Tinny Words" sketch finds humor in the pure sounds of English words and their inherent "woodiness" (good) or "tinniness" (bad).
  • Another Monty Python sketch, "Are You Embarrassed Easily?", includes a list of alternately ordinary and humorous words: shoe, megaphone, grunties, Wankel rotary engine, tits, winkle, and vibraphone.
  • Llama is another word portrayed as inherently funny. In one skit a group of Spanish musicians enters a room adorned with llama pictures and tells the audience facts about the llama (for example, "Llamas are larger than frogs."). In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the opening credits claim the film to be produced by various groups of llamas and directed by Ralph the Wonder Llama.
  • Monty Python's famous Spam sketch finds humor in repeating the word "Spam" multiple times.
• Dave Barry's 1991 book Dave Barry Talks Back reprints a column on linguistic humor. He contrasts the phrases "Richard Nixon wearing a necktie" with "Richard Nixon wearing a neck weasel", and "Scientists have discovered a 23rd moon orbiting Jupiter" with "Scientists have discovered a giant weasel orbiting Jupiter." He concludes that weasel is a very funny word - "You can improve the humor value of almost any situation by injecting a weasel into it."
• An Internet phenomenon involved taking lines from the Star Wars movies and replacing one word from the line with the word "pants", with comedic effect.[5] This suggests that pants may be an inherently funny word.
• In The Simpsons:
  • In the 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.
  • In another episode, Krusty the Clown paralyzes his vocal cords when he tries to cram in too many "Comedy K's".
• Comedian George Carlin talks about kumquats, garbanzos, succotash and guacamole in his older routines, claiming that due to their names they are "too funny to eat."
• 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.
• The inherent funniness of the word duck was popularized by the Marx Brothers comedies The Cocoanuts (featuring their "Why a Duck" routine) and Duck Soup. Comedian Joe Penner's famous "Wanna buy a duck?" routine of the 1930s is another example. A duck is also mentioned in The Llama Song. Also, artist Weird Al Yankovic wrote the song "I Want a New Duck" as a parody of "I Want a New Drug" by "Huey Lewis and the News."
• In the movie My Favorite Year, one character tells another to use "guy" instead of "man" when telling a joke, because "guy" is funnier.
• Richard Stallman has called "gnu" the funniest word in the English language [6].
• "Turtle, by the way, is a very funny word." —Roger Ebert, review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Comedian Ron White, in routines such as "They Call Me 'Tater Salad'", emphasizes the c in public to draw laughter from the audience, in addition to the use of the word tater.
• On Gilmore Girls, Lorelai Gilmore posits that "oy" is the funniest word ever and poodle is also very funny, and creates what she considers a wonderful catchphrase, "Oy with the poodles, already."
• In the comic strip Pickles by Brian Crane, the word snood was presented as an inherently funny word.
• In his DVD commentaries, Simpsons creator Matt Groening has proclaimed the word underpants to be at least 15% funnier than the word underwear. This idea is based on a theory by Futurama writer Ken Keeler. In the show Futurama, underpants is almost always used in lieu of "underwear."
• The Darkover game produced by Eon Games simulates the "psychic combat" of the Darkover novels by having the players choose a word or phrase and then repeat it over and over; the first player to laugh loses the psychic combat.
• Saturday Night Live writer Bryan Tucker has avowed that Monkey always elicits a laugh.
• "Bulbous Bouffant", performed by The Vestibules and picked up by Dr. Demento, is a routine based entirely on inherently funny words like galoshes, spatula, and tuberculosis.
• David Letterman has frequently used pants as a subject of humor, from screaming out "I am not wearing pants!" over a megahorn during the Today Show to naming his production company Worldwide Pants Incorporated.
• In a sketch on The O'Franken Factor (now The Al Franken Show) Al plays an "outsourced" version of himself with an exaggerated Indian 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 as 'Don Rickles, the king of the put-down.'"
• Badger Badger Badger - a well known Flash cartoon that relies on the repetition (and occasional unpredictability) to emphasize any inherent humor in a particular word.

Funny nonsense words

Sometimes words are invented with a specific purpose to make them funny.

• A classic example would be the Jabberwocky poem written by Lewis Carroll, the poem uses a rich set of nonce words, while evoking various emotions, and has quite a few inherently funny ones.
• Douglas Adams created many nonsense names for his characters in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Quordlepleen, Wowbagger, and Slartibartfast. He also created "Vogon poetry", consisting of words such as groop, gruntbuggly, gabbleblotchit, and bindlewerdle.
• Spike Milligan's Goon Show scripts often include funny nonsense words, such as spon, ploogie, plinge, klugy, lurgi, ying tong iddle i po and needle nardle noo.
• The film Monty Python and the Holy Grail features a band of knights - the Knights who say Ni, who are said to be feared for the manner in which they utter the word "Ni". The knights protect the word along with "Peng" and "Neee-wom", and hearing these words being spoken, is supposed to be horrifying to the listener. The knights later become the Knights Who Say "Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-pikang-zoop-boing-goodem-zoo-owli-zhiv". [7]

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 comic book, animation, and live action absurdist superhero The Tick, when required to choose a battle cry, chooses "Spoon!". In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the "rudest word in the Universe" is revealed to be "belgium". Another is "Snu-Snu" from Futurama, which was used by giant barbarian-like women to refer to sex.

References

• 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 [8]
• H. L. Mencken, "The Podunk Mystery", The New Yorker, September 25, 1948.

See also

• Clown (Clown 'bits')
• Comic timing
• Malapropism
• Speech error
• Nonsense poetry
• Cellar door (words that J.R.R. Tolkien said were especially beautiful)

External links

• Inherently Funny Words
• "Funny letters"
• "Funny words"
• Fruits with inherently funny names
• Monty Python "Woody and Tinny Words" sketch transcript
• Theories on humor
• Fun words to say, and other things too
• The Funny Things List