The belief that certain words are inherently funny, for reasons ranging from onomatopoeia to phonosemantics to sexual innuendo, is widespread among people who work in humor.

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 shm-reduplication. 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. 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 , which have developed from earlier sounds, and are not inherently funny.

English language

Comedy

Some influential comedians, such as W. C. Fields have long regarded certain words in the English language as being inherently funny and have used these to enhance the humour of their routines.

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.

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.

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. The local word for duck is considered to be funny in many languages, irrespective of pronunciation - this may be because ducks are seen as a silly animal, as shown by Richard Wiseman's LaughLab experiment..

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

It is not clear whether there are physiological or linguistic reasons for why these words are funny, nor whether the funny sounds are 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 in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery or Ty Webb announcing "You know, I feel like a hundred dollars" in Caddyshack).

The idea that the answer to "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. 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. 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!"

"Weird Al" Yankovic famously uses the number 27 prominently in his songs and videos because, according to him, "twenty-seven is a funny number." This has led to a trend among fans to catalog all of Weird Al's intentional uses of 27 in lyrics, album covers (See Running with Scissors, Poodle Hat and Straight Outta Lynwood) and television and movie appearances as well as increasingly tenuous occurrences such as 27's inclusion in various albums' Universal Product Codes, the dates certain of his albums went platinum or the atomic weight of Aluminum.

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", or "Lynn - fifty"), with the humour coming from the numbers' bluntness.

Examples of references to the concept

• 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 1936, 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, "Stinktown" 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.
• The 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.
• In The Simpsons:
• In the episode "Homie the Clown", drawing from W. C. Fields, 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 explains that many people believe comedy is about dirty words, but asserts that, rather, it's about "words that sound dirty."
• In yet another episode, Krusty notes that the funniest letter is 'k', and the funniest number is 3. He then appears distressed at the fact that this would make the Ku Klux Klan funny.
• 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.
• Comedian George Carlin, also drawing from W. C. Fields, 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.
• In the movie My Favorite Year, one character tells another to use "guy" instead of "man" when telling a joke, because "guy" is funnier.
• 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."
• "Bulbous Bouffant" performed by The Vestibules and picked up by Dr. Demento, is a routine based entirely on inherently funny words.
• 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.'"
• In an episode of "All That" the cast is shown as having to try out for their spots on the show,and in an event they are told to come up with funnier versions of given words. Like "pants" to which Kenan replies with the funnier word "trousers".
• In one King of the Hill episode, Bobby attends clown school which teaches the art and science of funny words.

Funny nonsense words

Sometimes words are invented with a specific purpose to make them funny. A classic example is the Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll, which uses a rich set of nonce words.

• Theodor Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss populated many of his writings with made-up words and objects.
• Douglas Adams created many nonsense names for his characters in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Quordlepleen, Phouchg, 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, lurgy, ying tong iddle i po and needle nardle noo.
• The film Monty Python and the Holy Grail features the Knights who say Ni, who are said to be feared for the manner in which they utter the word "Ni".
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is a nonsensical word that is used in the musical Mary Poppins.
• Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin is a nonsensical word that is used by Amateur Transplants as a parody on Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

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 radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the "rudest word in the Universe" is revealed to be "Belgium".

In his 1991 book Dave Barry Talks Back, reprinting a column on linguistic humor, Dave Barry 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." Barry concludes that "You can improve the humor value of almost any situation by injecting a weasel into it."

See also

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

Notes

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

External links

• Monty Python "Woody and Tinny Words" sketch transcript
• Inherently Funny Words
• "Funny letters"
• "Funny words"
• Theories on humor