Funny
Words
“What’s comedy all abou- TIMING!!!!!”, according to the
old joke. Actually it’s about quite a lot else, and one of the main factors by
which a joke stands or falls is wording. Yesterday’s flat joke may bring the
house down today if expressed with just one altered word.
Some words are funnier than others. Haddock is
funnier than Fish. Cake is funnier than Gateau. Grub is funnier than Larva. Why?
Often comedy writers just say “Well, they just are funnier” and leave it at
that, but I think there’s a science to it. Or a bit of a science, let’s not get
too nerdy about this...
The first rule is that short words are funnier than
longer ones. Cake vs Gateau, Grub vs Larva, Wig vs Hairpiece. A short word has a
punch which pushes the breath out and causes laughter. Brevity is the soul of
wit. Long words can get in the way very quickly. Then again, Haddock is longer
than Fish, so you can hardly say that this is an unbreakable rule, just like everything
else in comedy.
The second rule is that hard consonants are funnier
than soft. Cake and Haddock both have that wonderful edgy “k” sound, the ideal comedy
consonant (there we go again). Cookie is funnier than Biscuit. The “g” in Wig is fairly hard. It
has impact, and adds to the punch factor. Also, and this is important, hard
consonants are easier to hear. A muffled joke has no impact.
The third rule is that words with hidden, or
slightly underground, associations, can work really well. Hob Nob is funnier
than Biscuit because, subliminally, it sounds like part of a knob gag. Lunchbox is funnier than Packed
Lunch because it also has knobby connotations. The Fluke fish sounds funny
because it also sounds like something else. It doesn’t mean these work as puns.
If they did, it would distract from the point of the joke. But there’s
something in all these words which makes the audience sit up and listen. Their
comedy sensibility has been alerted.
The fourth rule is probably the most important but
also the most obvious. The word has to convey the sense of the joke precisely. If
you set up with the phrase “The butler fetched the president a hob nob” it’s
distracting because we’re expecting something posh – unless the joke is about
spending cuts in the White House, or something like that. This rule overcomes
all the others. Unless it doesn’t. This is comedy, after all.