User:SP-KP/InherentlyFunnyWord

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 ("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.

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.

Funny numbers
69 is a funny number, because it is a sexual innuendo.

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." .

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

 * American humor magazine Mad championed a number of obscure or nonsense words, such as axolotl, fonebone, veeblefetzer, hoohah, furshlugginer, and potrzebie.
 * 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 also 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.
 * 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 The Simpsons 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.
 * 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 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".
 * 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 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 an earlier "The Far Side" book, Gary Larson had declared weasel to be the funniest word in the English language.
 * 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.
 * 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."

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

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".